The following are documented facts about the Crusades:
- The Crusaders did massacre every Muslim they found when they captured Jerusalem in 1098. In fact they massacred just about everyone, Christian and Muslim alike, since they were too ignorant to realize that Christians in Jerusalem didn't look or dress like Christians in Europe.
- The Christians did do everything they could to try to destabilize moderate Islamic governments around them.
- Salahuddin's invasion of the Holy Land was in fact triggered by an attack on a caravan where his sister was traveling.
- The Crusader army did in fact leave a secure position, marched across open desert without water, and was utterly crushed at the Horns of Hattin on July 4, 1187. (the place name comes from two prominent nearby hills. It is curious that the film does not mention the name of the battle.)
- Guy de Lusignan, Reynald de Chatillon, and the Templar Grand Master, Gerard de Ridefort, were every bit as cruel and treacherous as they are portrayed in the film.
Guy de Lusignan was so repugnant that the Knights Hospitalers did in fact leave Jerusalem rather than serve him. - Salahuddin really did say "it is not the custom of kings to kill kings;" Guy was released from prison a year after the battle, a broken man.
- Salahuddin offered to permit the inhabitants to leave on payment of a ransom. A European writer put it: "This agreement pleased the lord Patriarch and the others who had money ...." Those who could not pay ransom were to be sold into slavery, but according to the Arab chronicler Ibn al-Athir: "Balian ibn Barzan offered 30,000 dinar as ransom for the poor, which was accepted, and the city surrendered on Friday 27 rajab (2 October 1187), a memorable day on which the Muslim flags were hoisted over the walls of Jerusalem." At the very least, there was no wholesale massacre.
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