صلاح الدين الأيوبي ٢_a .. كتاب مائة أوائل من تراثنا ، الكاتب عبد الهادي حرصوني

The strength of Saladin's army was the knights, and the basic weapon of these cavalrymen was bows and arrows with swords and pins. The bows of Salahuddin's army excelled as they were more flexible, lighter in weight, and easier to use. It was wrapped with strings of animal skins, which were moistened with water, and the strings of the bows were also made of animal skins, and when these bows were dried in the sun, their “pulsating capacity was very large, and the archer knight could shoot in all directions and shoot ten or more arrows per minute. The arrow sometimes reached a distance of four hundred meters, and when Saladin's forces were advancing into a battle, they covered the battle sky with arrows, and the arrows often targeted the enemy's horses, and in front of this the Crusaders were forced to cover themselves and their horses with protective shields, but often the damage of this Shields are more than useful, because the Arab forces preferred to fight in the summer seasons for many reasons, including what was agricultural and associated with the military feudal system, and some of which were for combat technical purposes, as the rain and weather were Al-Rutba is the first and biggest enemy of the priest, because it used to make it lose its potency

And when the battles were taking place in the hot seasons, the Crusader forces were suffering from thirst and their knights were exhausted as a result of the cessation of sweating, because minerals prevent bodies from sweating, and we will see the effect of this in the success of the Muslims in winning the Battle of Hattin and in confronting the combat bases of the Muslims. »
Those who covered their cavalry and horses, but rather modified their methods of fighting and arming their armies, they took the use of infantry forces who wore coats. Thick leather over which was a shirt of metal nets, and the weapons of these were heavy bows, axes and spears, and they were advancing in front of the cavalry divisions whose main weapon was strong spears. And here it was, if the Arab knights tried to raid them, the heavy Crusader knights would counter them by pounce on them with their spears directed forward, capable of breaching, with the power of the horses' rush: to tie the knight himself to the back of his horse, and focus his spear under his armpit, and for these reasons the Arabs built their plans - on Separation of forces - that is, to create a gap between the cavalry and the infantry, and it is a complex process in application and implementation, for this they used hit and run to attract the cavalry, and that if the operation succeeded, they would send their arrows in the sky until they land on the heads of the cavalry, or they would send them superficially to hit the bellies of the enemy horses, Where the horses were crippled, disabling the cavalry, the armored knight armed with a long spear was unable to work after crippling his mount, and after this the archers, with their lightness and flexibility, would hang their bows, and take up their swords or pins and They pounce on the cavalry and infantry separately, and finish them off

And when Salah al-Din was determined to engage in a battle with the Crusaders, he used to prepare for that several months ago by sending army battalions to destroy the enemy’s crops and spoil the wells and economic water resources.
The plan of the spring of 1187 A.D. called Salah ad-Din to jihad, so the regular forces from his state and the state of Mosul and others began to arrive successively in Damascus, so numbers of volunteers arrived with them, and what Salah al-Din gathered was more than twenty thousand fighters, but less than thirty, and the military leadership set . To attack Palestine in order to liberate it, and this plan aimed to lure

. 6 The Crusaders came to the region of Tiberias to inflict a devastating blow on it, and the Crusaders felt the approaching danger towards them, so they removed their differences and mobilized all their forces, and perhaps it approached fifty thousand, a number that the Crusaders had not met once like it in the Levant before or after, and the Crusaders' forces camped in Saffuriyya - Near Nazareth - and it became anticipating conditions and awaiting the development of matters, and as it is clear that the number of these forces exceeded the number of what gathered with Salah al-Din, and there were among them the best men of the Franks in the East. Salah al-Din left Damascus, and his forces took the road towards Jordan, and on Friday - June 26, 1187 M - These forces crossed the Jordan River south of Lake Tiberias, and took their positions near the outskirts of the river, and it became necessary for them to implement the set plan. The experienced Crusader leaders were aware of Saladin's aims and objectives, and at that time Raymond III, the owner of Tripoli and Tiberias, was at their head. A contemporary Latin source narrates the events. That he addressed the leaders of the Franks camped in Saffuriyya in the first military council they held, saying: (I advise you and suggest that you charge your cities and castles with men, supplies, weapons, and all the necessary means of defense and ask for assistance from all parties Because I am sure that Saladin will remain where he is, 11-100 early 6. Raymond III