ABSTRACT
Historians' assessments of the period 1174 to 1187 are often coloured by their knowledge of events at the Battle of Hattin on 4 July 1187 when the army of Saladin crushed the forces of King Guy of Jerusalem and precipitated the fall of holy city to Islam. Unlike Nur ad-Din, Saladin possessed two contemporary biographers who were determined to extol his virtues and to proclaim him as the hero of Sunni Islam, namely Beha ad-Din and Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani. Saladin had an extremely difficult task to impose his authority on the Muslim Near East and to gain the resources necessary to defeat the Franks. Baldwin IV was crowned king of Jerusalem on 15 July 1174, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the capture of the holy city. The recent defeat at Jacob's Ford and King Baldwin IV's continued incapacity prompted another embassy to Europe. He was succeeded by Count Raymond III of Tripoli, who was Baldwin's closest male relative in the East.
