of the Muslims. Saladin had grown up in Syria,
where his family had served first Imad al-Din Zengi,
the Oghuz Turkish governor of Aleppo, and later his
second son, Emir Nur ad-Din, the governor of Syria
and Upper Mesopotamia. Upon Nur ad-Din’s death
in 1174, Saladin began campaigning in Syria. By the
early 1180s, he had succeeded in conquering both
Damascus and Aleppo. It was the first time that the
Franks faced a single Muslim ruler who controlled
the military resources of both Egypt and Syria.
Meanwhile, the Latin footprint in the Holy Land
was shrinking. The Zengid Turks had completed
their conquest of the northernmost crusader state,
the County of Edessa, over a six-year period ending
in 1150. Of the three remaining crusader states,
the Principality of Antioch, County of Tripoli and
the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the latter was most
powerful. Its king was the overall leader of all
three crusader states. He ruled from Jerusalem and
occupied the bustling port of Acre: one of the finest
harbours on the Levantine coast.
While Saladin was building his power, the
crusader states suffered from a lack of strong
leadership. Guy of Lusignan, who ascended to the
throne in 1186 through his marriage to Queen
Sibylla, was an inept commander. This became
glaringly apparent when Saladin soundly defeated
his 20,000-strong crusader army at Hattin in
Galilee with his 30,000 Muslim horsemen on
4 July 1187.
Saladin captured Guy and many of his soldiers
at Hattin. The sultan subsequently imprisoned Guy
in Damascus until such time as the Franks paid his
ransom. Saladin embarked on a sweeping offensiveafter Hattin, capturing Acre, Jaffa, Sidon, Beirut
and Ascalon – all ports through which supplies
flowed to the Kingdom of Jerusalem. His capture
of the city of Jerusalem on 2 October boded ill for
the Latin crusader states. Unless well-led Frankish
reinforcements arrived soon, the Kingdom of
Jerusalem might soon fall to the Muslims.CRUSADERS RETAKE ACRE
Pope Gregory VIII issued a papal bull on 29 October
calling for the Third Crusade. The three most
powerful rulers in Western Europe, Philip II of
France, Henry II of England and Holy Roman
Emperor Frederick I ‘Barbarossa’, all agreed to take
the cross and lead an army of Christian soldiers to
the Holy Land in a bid to recover Jerusalem and roll
back Saladin’s gains.King Richard the Lionheart
and his knights overwhelm
the Muslim cavalry beneath
the walls of JaffaAll^images:^ ©Alamy