Skip to content
statementVerified

Modern standard accounts following Arabic and Latin chronicles record the 1187 victory at Hattin

Standard modern accounts, using Baha al-Din, Imad al-Din, and Latin crusade historians, record that on 4 July 1187 Saladin’s army trapped and destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s field force at the Horns of Hattin. In the causal graph this event weakens Humanitarian Access, a driver that strengthens People Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (IDMC) — an improving welfare path.

Sources: [1][2]

Read the full account

Standard modern accounts, using Baha al-Din, Imad al-Din, and Latin crusade historians, record that on 4 July 1187 Saladin’s army trapped and destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s field force at the Horns of Hattin. This Fact stores the battle as received, including the subsequent execution of Templar and Hospitaller captives as part of the same campaign cluster, not as a separate invented massacre statistic.

Context

Hattin opened Jerusalem. It also produced a killing of military-order prisoners that even admiring Arabic writers record as policy. Chivalric later portraits that omit the executions are reception, stored elsewhere. Confidence is high on the battle’s occurrence in the received record, medium on any one medieval number.

Saladin is not the sole author of every later object, law, or museum label that uses the name. Shared work with courts, excavators, printers, spouses, officials, and later states does not erase a documented role, and it does not make an ancient person the signer of a twentieth-century statute.

Why it matters

Lethal campaign path. High confidence on the event in the received record.

Who was responsible

Contribution type and responsibility level for each recorded actor — not sole-author shorthand.

  • Saladin

    Person

    Direct responsibility

    responsibility level 0.55 · verified

    He commanded the Ayyubid-Zengid coalition that destroyed the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s field army. Chroniclers, not a 1187 ISO file, are the public record.

What changed

Fact → Driver → Indicator. Relationship strength orders the paths; it is not the observed indicator movement.

    1. FactModern standard accounts following Arabic and Latin chronicles record the 1187 victory at Hattin
    2. weakensDriverHumanitarian Access
    3. strengthensIndicatorPeople Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (IDMC)
    Improving path

    impact weight 0.55 · Effect from 1 June 1898 · verified

    Destruction of a field army and the subsequent killing of military-order prisoners is a documented lethal campaign path.

Evidence

The sources behind this fact and its verification state.

Verified2 sources on file
  1. 1.Met Heilbrunn — The CrusadesMetropolitan Museum of Art · High credibility · verified
  2. 2.Britannica — Battle of HattinEncyclopaedia Britannica · High credibility · verified
What the sources establish

Britannica’s Hattin article and the Met crusade essay independently narrate 1187 from the chronicle tradition. They are not a 1187 file cabinet.

Established: received Arabic and Latin traditions record Hattin on 4 July 1187 and the killing of order brethren. Not established: a Factrail original headcount.

Later competitions, monuments, translations, UNESCO listings, and museums are not converted into extra lifetime acts. That reading is an impact-path choice, not a property stored on the Fact itself. Confidence is stated on the impact path. A later English edition is not a recovered autograph. If a number is not in the two records named above, it is not supplied here.

Causal path

How this event connects to drivers and indicators in the graph.

  1. ActorSaladin
  2. contributed toFactModern standard accounts following Arabic and Latin chronicles record the 1187 victory at Hattin
  3. weakensDriverHumanitarian Access
  4. strengthensIndicatorPeople Internally Displaced by Conflict and Violence (IDMC)

Cite this page

Factrail. (2026). Modern standard accounts following Arabic and Latin chronicles record the 1187 victory at Hattin. Factrail. https://factrail.ai/facts/sa-hattin-as-chronicle-event

https://factrail.ai/facts/sa-hattin-as-chronicle-event

Accessed 16 October 2026.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed

Dispute this factNamed here, or represent someone who is? Request a right of reply.