Saladin's Capture of Jerusalem (1187): The City Surrenders

Saladin’s capture of Jerusalem took place in late September and early October 1187, when the Ayyubid sultan besieged the city and accepted its surrender on 2 October. Coming three months after his victory at Hattin, it ended 88 years of crusader rule over the holy city. The negotiated surrender, led on the Frankish side by Balian of Ibelin, contrasted sharply with the massacre that had followed the crusader conquest in 1099.

Background

After destroying the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187, Saladin moved quickly to take the kingdom’s ports and towns. Acre, Jaffa, Sidon, Beirut and finally Ascalon surrendered over the summer. Only then did he turn to Jerusalem, which had little military value but enormous religious importance for Muslims, Christians and Jews.

Jerusalem had been captured by the First Crusade in July 1099, when much of its Muslim and Jewish population was killed. For Muslims, recovering the city, which contains the al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, had become the central goal of the holy war preached since the time of Nur ad-Din.

Balian of Ibelin and the defence

Balian of Ibelin, one of the few lords to escape from Hattin, had gone to Tyre. He asked Saladin for permission to go to Jerusalem to bring out his wife, Maria Komnene, and their children, promising to stay only one night. Once there, he was begged by the people and by Patriarch Heraclius to lead the defence. Saladin released him from his oath and even gave his family an escort to safety.

The city was packed with refugees from the surrounding countryside, but it had very few knights. According to Frankish accounts, Balian knighted a number of noble boys and burgesses (townsmen) to strengthen the garrison.

The siege

Saladin arrived on 20 September 1187 and attacked the western walls near the Tower of David. The defenders resisted for about five days. Saladin then shifted his army to the northern side of the city, near the Mount of Olives and the area where the crusaders had broken in back in 1099.

His siege engines and miners made rapid progress. On 29 September the sappers brought down a section of the northern wall. The defenders could no longer hope to hold the city.

The surrender terms

Balian went to Saladin to negotiate. Saladin at first wanted to take the city by force, as the crusaders had done. Ibn al-Athir reports that Balian threatened that the defenders would kill their Muslim prisoners, destroy the Dome of the Rock and the al-Aqsa Mosque, and fight to the death if no terms were given. Saladin’s council advised accepting a surrender.

The agreed terms were:

• 10 dinars for each man, 5 for each woman and 2 for each child as ransom;
• 40 days to pay, after which those still unransomed would become slaves;
• a payment of 30,000 dinars, taken partly from funds held by the Hospitallers, to free around 7,000 poor people.

The city surrendered on Friday 2 October 1187, which in the Islamic calendar was 27 Rajab 583, the traditional anniversary of the Prophet Muhammad’s Night Journey to Jerusalem.

Key people

• Saladin, the Ayyubid sultan, who wanted the glory of recovering Jerusalem for Islam and agreed to a negotiated surrender rather than a storm.
• Balian of Ibelin, a lord of the kingdom who had escaped from Hattin and led the defence and the negotiations.
• Heraclius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, the city’s senior churchman, who supported Balian during the siege.
• Sibylla, queen of Jerusalem, whose husband King Guy was Saladin’s prisoner; she was in the city and was later allowed to leave and join him.
• Al-Adil, Saladin’s brother, who freed a large group of poor captives after the surrender.

Aftermath

Thousands of Franks paid their ransoms and left for Tyre, Tripoli and Alexandria. Many could not pay; estimates of those enslaved are usually around 15,000. Saladin’s brother al-Adil asked for 1,000 captives and freed them, and Saladin released others, including many elderly people. Patriarch Heraclius was criticised by Christian writers for leaving with church treasures that could have ransomed the poor.

Eastern Christians, such as the Orthodox and Syriac communities, were allowed to remain. Saladin had the golden cross removed from the Dome of the Rock and restored the al-Aqsa Mosque, installing a carved wooden pulpit that Nur ad-Din had ordered for the purpose years earlier. Jews were later permitted to settle in the city again.

Timeline

• 1187, 4 July: Saladin destroys the Frankish army at Hattin.
• 1187, early September: Ascalon surrenders to Saladin.
• 1187, 20 September: Saladin begins the siege of Jerusalem from the west.
• 1187, about 26 September: Saladin moves his attack to the northern walls.
• 1187, 29 September: Saladin’s sappers breach the northern wall.
• 1187, 2 October: Jerusalem surrenders on ransom terms.

Why it matters

The fall of Jerusalem ended the first Kingdom of Jerusalem as a state centred on the holy city and made Saladin the hero of the Islamic world. In Europe it caused deep shock and led directly to the Third Crusade, which failed to win the city back.