July 4 1187 – 26 Tammuz 4947
After a series of Crusader blunders, Ayyubid sultan Saladin defeated Guy de Lusignan’s army in battle at the Horns of Hattin, a hill near Tiberias. Having chosen to leave the shelter of their castle at Sepphoris to relieve beseiged Tiberias, the knights of the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem arrived exhausted from their long march in the summer heat along a waterless route. Their Muslim opponents, plentifully supplied, had already put their archers to good effect, reducing the knights’ numbers the day before. They were well-prepared for the decisive battle, which began at 9 in the morning. The Crusader knights’ military prowess was irrelevant under the circumstances; almost their entire army was wiped out, and with it most of the senior aristocracy who were in charge of running the kingdom. Guy de Lusignon was among the many knights taken prisoner, and few of the 1200 knights who’d set out ever returned home. The Ayyubid army too, suffered heavy losses, but the outcome was clear. It was also a strategic defeat for the Crusaders, who’d always succeeded in battle when gathered together to fight their foes. The battle of the Horns of Hattin is considered the decisive turning point in the fortunes of the Crusader kingdom, and is fondly remembered by Muslims as the beginning of the end of their rule.
אסף.צ at Hebrew WikipediaThe Horns of Hattin today