A Crusader castle on a plateau above the Dead Sea — Reynald of Châtillon's fortress that Saladin besieged in 1183, still dominating the town below
Karak (also written Kerak or Al-Karak) is a market town on a triangular mesa in central Jordan, dominated by one of the best-preserved Crusader castles in the Levant: the Crac de Moab (now simply Karak Castle), built by Crusaders in the 12th century and expanded by subsequent Ayyubid and Mamluk rulers. The castle was the seat of the brutal and reckless Crusader lord Reynald of Châtillon, whose repeated attacks on Muslim caravans (including a notable attempt to raid Mecca) led Saladin to besiege it personally in 1183 and again in 1184. The castle fell to Saladin in 1189 after the Battle of Hat…
Karak sits on the ancient King's Highway, the primary north-south route through the Transjordan plateau that connected Egypt to Mesopotamia and was used by everyone from the Exodus narrative's Israelites (who were denied passage through Moab, of which Karak was a principal city) to Nabataean caravans. The mesa's natural defensibility made it a logical fortification site through multiple eras: Iron Age Moabite, Nabataean, Roman, Byzantine, and finally Crusader.