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# Saladin Reconquers Jerusalem (تحرير بيت المقدس)
When Saladin (Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi) accepted the surrender of Jerusalem on 2 October 1187 CE (27 Rajab 583 AH), he did something almost unprecedented in the medieval world: he showed mercy to a people whose predecessors had shown none. The reconquest of Jerusalem stands not only as one of Islam's greatest military achievements but as a moral statement that resonated across religious and cultural boundaries for centuries.
Salah al-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub was born in 1137 CE in Tikrit (in modern Iraq) to a Kurdish family in the service of the Zengid dynasty. He rose through the ranks of the Zengid military administration, eventually becoming vizier of Egypt under the Fatimid Caliphs and then, after the death of Nur al-Din in 1174, the independent sultan who united Egypt and Syria under his rule.
Saladin was by all contemporary accounts — Muslim, Christian, and Jewish — a man of exceptional personal character. He was renowned for his generosity to the point that he died virtually without personal wealth, having given away almost everything he owned. He maintained strict personal religious observance. He was known for keeping his word even to enemies. These qualities were not incidental to his political success — they were central to it. A leader capable of commanding genuine loyalty across the fractured political landscape of 12th-century Islam needed to be seen as something more than a military strongman.
His campaign against the Crusader states was explicitly framed as a religious duty — the jihad for Jerusalem — and this framing was backed by genuine personal conviction and consistent behavior. He refused to allow his forces to plunder cities unnecessarily. He returned captured Crusaders rather than enslaving them when it served the larger purpose of building his coalition. He maintained diplomatic contact with Crusader leaders even during active warfare.
The reconquest of Jerusalem was made possible by a strategic catastrophe for the Crusaders at the Horns of Hattin on July 4, 1187 CE. The Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, under King Guy of Lusignan, had marched its entire field army — some 20,000 soldiers — to relieve the siege of the city of Tiberias. Saladin, a master of strategic deception, allowed them to march across waterless terrain in summer heat, cutting them off from water sources and harassing their column with cavalry.
The Crusader army arrived at the Horns of Hattin exhausted, dehydrated, and effectively encircled. On July 4, Saladin's forces completed the destruction of the Crusader field army. King Guy was captured. The True Cross — the relic the Crusaders carried into battle as the most sacred object of their religious identity — was captured. Reynald of Chatillon, whose repeated violations of truces had provoked the war, was personally executed by Saladin. The other captured kings and nobles were held for ransom.
With the field army destroyed, the Crusader Kingdom had no meaningful military force left to defend its cities. One after another, the major Crusader fortresses fell over the following months, often surrendering without siege. Jerusalem was effectively isolated.
Jerusalem was defended by Balian of Ibelin, a knight who had been in Tyre when Hattin occurred and had been given safe conduct by Saladin to travel to Jerusalem to retrieve his family. Once inside, he found a city with almost no military defenders — the men were dead or captured at Hattin — and a population of 60,000 or more civilian refugees. He wrote to Saladin explaining his dilemma and asking to be released from his oath not to fight, as the city needed defense. Saladin released him from his oath and granted him permission to organize the city's defense.
This exchange — in which the man organizing the defense of Jerusalem sought and received an honorable release from his commitment from the man besieging it — illuminates the character of the conflict at its highest levels. Both men operated within a framework of honor that transcended the immediate military situation.
Balian organized what defense he could, knighting hundreds of squires and common men to provide a minimal military structure. But the outcome was not in doubt. When the walls were finally breached and the city's fall became inevitable, Balian came to Saladin to negotiate terms.
The negotiation was tense. Balian threatened that if Saladin insisted on unconditional surrender, the defenders would kill all the Muslim prisoners held in the city (estimated at 5,000), destroy the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque, and slaughter every horse and animal before sallying out and fighting to the last man. Saladin took this threat seriously and agreed to negotiate.
The terms Saladin offered were extraordinary by any medieval standard — and they were clearly shaped by the contrast he intended to draw with what had happened in 1099 CE.
Every Christian who could pay a ransom of ten dinars (men), five dinars (women), or one dinar (children) would be allowed to leave freely with their possessions. Saladin's own brother Safi al-Din went through the city and released 1,000 captives without ransom from his own funds. Saladin himself paid the ransoms for numerous individuals he deemed unable to afford it. The Ibelin family had negotiated that 7,000 of the poorest residents would be released for a lump sum — Saladin accepted and personally contributed to ensuring the poor were not left behind.
Those who could not pay the ransom — some 15,000 according to later accounts — were technically enslaved, as was the standard of the age for those who could not secure release. But contemporary sources suggest Saladin's personal generosity significantly reduced this number.
The Christians were given 40 days to arrange ransom and depart. Churches were not destroyed. The Christian population was allowed to take their sacred objects with them. The Hospitaller and Templar knights negotiated their own release. No massacre occurred. No church was burned.
When the gold cross was removed from the Dome of the Rock, there was reported wailing from the Muslim soldiers. Saladin is reported to have entered al-Aqsa Mosque and ordered it cleansed and restored to its function as a place of Islamic worship — washing its walls with rose water, which had been brought specially for the occasion.
The date of the reconquest — 27 Rajab 583 AH — is the same date as the Night of Isra and Mi'raj in many Islamic traditions (though scholars note the exact date of that event is debated). Whether this alignment was planned or coincidental, it was seized upon by contemporary Muslims as a sign of divine favor — Jerusalem restored to Islam on the anniversary of the Prophet's ﷺ miraculous night journey through it.
Saladin's conduct at Jerusalem became a standard reference across religious traditions. European Crusader chronicles, including those written by his enemies, praised his chivalry and generosity. The medieval European literary tradition romanticized him as the ideal of the noble adversary. Richard the Lionheart, who arrived the following year in the Third Crusade, maintained diplomatic correspondence with Saladin even during active warfare, and the two developed a relationship of mutual respect that neither age's religious polarization could entirely erase.
For Muslims, Saladin represents the fulfillment of a promise — the patient, principled effort to reverse the injustice of 1099 CE, achieved not through the methods of the Crusaders but through methods diametrically opposed to them. He demonstrated that Islam's claim to the moral high ground was not rhetorical but behavioral.
The reconquest of Jerusalem on 27 Rajab 1187 CE remains among the most celebrated events in Islamic history — a moment when power and principle aligned, and mercy chose the harder and more honorable path.