Beaufort Castle (Lebanon)

Also known as Qal'at al-Shaqif, Shaqif Arnun, Belfort

One of the most striking examples of Crusader military architecture in the Levant, perched on a sheer rock over the Litani. Fulk of Jerusalem captured the site in 1139; the Franks built a roughly triangular fortress (150 × 100 m) in two wards with a 12 × 12 m keep — notable for its Syrian-style ground-floor entrance rather than the usual European first-floor door. Saladin took it after a long siege in 1189–90, during which the Frankish lord Reynald of Sidon famously stalled surrender negotiations by pretending to be converting to Islam, buying months of time for relief while feigning theological study — a stratagem recorded with grudging admiration by Saladin's secretaries. The Franks recovered Beaufort fifty years later; Baibars captured it for the Mamluks in 1268. Its strategic value was so great that Beaufort was still an active military post during the 1982 Lebanon War.

Coordinates: 33.3192°, 35.5386°

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