Talk:Battle of Hattin

The capture of Saladin's sister

Can anyone cite this? If not, I plan to delete it.

It is in Ernoul, but Muslim sources don't mention her. Adam Bishop 20:39, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Numbers

I've changes the numbers, based on avid Nicolle's estimates, both in his "[Osprey Campaign#19] Hattin 1187" (ps.58-61), and "[Osprey Men-At-War #171] Saladin and the Saracens" (p.20).

If someone has closer estimates, please put them in, and tell me where they are from, our of curiousity.

Thanks.

MYLO 21:17, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

its very hard to eistimate the both side numbres but we can try to select the most closed numbre for salah al din-saladin-as arbic reference he had 12000 knight and in this age moslems dont use foot soldiers all the army are knight but some time in big battle the collect foot soldiers form cities and some timesu the numbre of those are equal the knight numbres i think the are not more than 10,000 men so the total army 22000 or less and i am sure the crusaders are less than salah al din army i am sorry for my english

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The armies of Saladin always had infantrymen, specially archers althought had too other troops as you see in the Battle of Arsuf; in the same battle of Hattin, if i remember well, the muslim infantry attacked the souther side of the christian army, cutting the way to the Lake, while the cavalry attack the rear and vanguard of the christians while these was advancing to Hattin.

-Fco

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I believe he is right. It was around 30,000 Muslims and 15,000-20,000 crusaders. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shazy1022 (talk • contribs) 19:01, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I know Muslims outnumbered Christians but not much thought I guess around 18,000 Crusaders and 22,000 Muslims Uzair Ansari333 (talk) 23:20, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Uzair Ansari333 - We are not interested in what you "guess" - only in what Reliable published sources have said - Arjayay (talk) 12:02, 6 January 2019 (UTC)

Translation

If you would like I could translate the arabic version and paste it here.

Sure, it would be interesting to see what it says. Adam Bishop 02:56, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Discrepancy between this and Third Crusade

In the account of Raynald and Guy's capture, it is written in this article:

"The exhausted captives were brought to Saladin's tent, where Guy was given a goblet of iced water as a sign of Saladin's generosity. When Guy offered the goblet to his fellow captive Raynald, Saladin allowed the old man (Raynald was about 60) to drink it but shortly afterwards said that he had not offered water to Raynald and thus was not bound by the Muslim rules of hospitality. When Saladin accused Raynald of being an oath-breaker, Raynald replied that "kings have always acted thus". Saladin then executed Raynald himself, beheading him with his sword."

but in the short paragraph it is stated:

"King Guy and Raynald were brought to Saladin's tent, where Guy was offered a goblet of water. Guy took a drink but was forbidden to pass the goblet to Raynald, because the Muslim rule of hospitality states that one who receives food or drink is under the protection of the host. Saladin would not be forced to protect the treacherous Raynald by allowing him to drink. Raynald, who had not had a drop of water in days, grabbed the goblet out of Guy's hands. Upon seeing Raynald's disrespect for Arab custom, Saladin beheaded Raynald for past betrayals. Saladin honored tradition with King Guy; Guy was sent to Damascus and eventually ransomed to his people, one of the few captive crusaders to avoid execution."

So which is it? Did Raynald snatch the Goblet or did Guy give it to him?

Depends which source you read...Adam Bishop 04:16, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

image

the image we have here, tagged with "The Battle of Hattin, from a medieval manuscript": what is our evidence that this depicts, in fact, the battle of Hattin? I grant you it is perfectly possible, but how are we to know if we don't even know which manuscript this is from? Until we pinpoint the source, the image is just so many colourful pixels. dab (𒁳) 18:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this one, and some of our other crusade images, are from the Grandes Chroniques de France. This one looks like an imaginative reconstruction of Hattin, with the two horns, Tiberias in the background, and the well replacing the lake as a source of water...but yeah I guess it could be anything. Adam Bishop 18:24, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually it looks similar to Image:BalianofIbelin1490.JPG, which is from Les Passages faits Outremer par les Français contre les Turcs et autres Sarrasins et Maures outremarins, according to the image page. Adam Bishop 08:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Since when did the Kingdom crap soldiers?

I have never had the pleasure and pain of seeing something so utterly ludicrous. The Crusdaers numbering 60,000, including 40,000 mercenaries?!! Even Salahdin had a tough time raising 40,000 men or more, AND HE HAD SYRIA AND EGYPT COMBINED!!!! Use references, like I have for my numbers. Tourskin (talk) 01:53, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

That was added on January 19. Tefalstar reverted only one of the anon's three edits; I wonder if he meant to revert all three. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:13, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

The numbers I found were a lot lower as well, I added in what I had, but I left the other as well just with a request for a citation.Walbe13 (talk) 16:14, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

7th July

Both a history channel series "History Makers" and Harvey's book "The Plantagenets" give the date of the battle as 7/7. Should we mention this, it certainly has importance in England, considering the date of the London bombings by Islamic extremists? --Tefalstar (talk) 16:12, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

false information with no citations on the execution of templars and hospitalers

There is a part inside the articles withought any citations that states that the templars and hospitalers where no executed after the battle and then it states that crusaders who claimed to be templars were executed. After the battle Saladin gave orders to behead all templars except their grandmaster. The beheadings were carried out at night by sufi mystics who begged Saladin to have this honor. None of them covnerted to Islam. The only reason the grandmaster was kept alive was for him to be taken to Asaclon and convince the templar garison to surender (since an order from the grandmaster was needed to surender a fortress. I can provide citations, if needed this portion needs to be fixed because what the article mentions is wrong and contradicting at the same time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.53.236.98 (talk) 19:33, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Numbers

How did the Crusaders get 60,000 men that is near impossible during this period! From an arabic source I have Saladin with 8,000 infantry and 12,000 cavalry and for the Crusaders there are 20,000 infantry with 2,200 knights and 4,000 turcopoles. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cauca50 (talk • contribs) 23:06, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

That was changed earlier today by someone who seems to have replaced the figured with random numbers. This happens pretty much every day with articles about battles. I don't know why people do that, but it's extremely annoying. I've changed it back. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:40, 29 October 2011 (UTC)

People should realize that battles are not only about numbers, but also about quality, use of terrain, morale and amny many other factors :/ --Arsaces (talk) 09:32, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Ayyubid casualties

What is the sources for "Light" as Ayyubid casualties?

After reading a book about this battle (where author states that their casualties are unknown - but there is an extensive description of this battle there) I have an impression that the battle was prolonged, fierce and several times during the battle Jerusalem army almost took the upper hand - so I think that Ayyubid casualties could not be "Light".

Peter558 (talk) 10:14, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

Probably medium because Muslims archers suffered at the hands of Knights Around 4,000 casualties I guess Uzair Ansari333 (talk) 23:22, 5 January 2019 (UTC)

Picture

Saladin wasn't African at all. he was Arab Kurdish, why is he shown as African in the last picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.148.74.110 (talk) 14:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Ugh, I don't know, it's a relatively modern and extremely odd painting, and it's been spammed over a bunch of articles. I got bored of reverting it, which is why its currently still there. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:25, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

I know almost nothing about this subject, but the same image caught my eye as wrong and out of place. In addition to depicting Saladin as African, he was also given a very sinister appearance. I've replaced the painting with an alternative. 76.27.246.134 (talk) 23:46, 15 April 2013 (UTC)

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Saladin beheaded all of them. That's brutal lol. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.60.197.159 (talk) 11:51, 20 September 2014 (UTC)

Crusaders, Latins, Franks or Christians?

Historians normally refer to the army destroyed at Hattin as "Christians", "Franks" or "Latins". The reason being that the Kingdom of Jerusalem had been in existence for eighty-seven years and the majority of its warriors were locally born - either the descendants of those members of the First Crusades who had settled in Palestine after the original conquest, subsequent migrants or indigenous Christians. By contrast "Crusaders" usually refers to the actual European born participants in one of the various armed expeditions to the Middle East between the 11th and 13th centuries. The present article generally uses the term Crusader though occasionally referring to a "Christian" or "Frankish" army. It may be just a matter of semantics but any views on standardizing? Buistr (talk) 22:00, 20 February 2015 (UTC)

"Christian" and "Muslim" are a bit vague here...they're accurate given the circumstances, but it's sort of an oversimplification. I like "crusader" just to make the connection with the fact that this was taking place in the "crusader kingdom", but that's not technically correct since none of these people were actually on crusade or had taken a crusader vow. Typically, crusader historiography these days calls them Franks, since that's what they called themselves and that's what their neighbours called them. Adam Bishop (talk) 15:10, 21 February 2015 (UTC)

number

According to an Arab source, Ibn Atheer is a person who lived in the era of Salah al-Din, as the number of an Arab army is 13,000 knights and about 12,000 infantry, and the number of Crusaders is less than 2,000 or 5,000 soldiers. that mean 20,000 or 18,000, all Westerners ’estimates are in favor of a crusader party. Ryoinn899 (talk) 16:31, 14 November 2020 (UTC)