Holy Warriors (7 page)

A little detective work can reconcile eyewitness descriptions with the present-day topography to identify a short stretch (sixty meters) of fortifications, between the second tower east of Herod’s Gate and the next larger salient beyond it. Today, opposite the Rockefeller Museum, it is possible to stand among the overgrown thorn bushes in the ditch and to look up at the walls above. Notwithstanding the grind of modern traffic passing close by it is a deeply sobering experience to pause in the shadows at the foot of these fortifications and to imagine the brutal, desperate struggle that took place on the very same spot on July 14 and 15, 1099.

Godfrey’s decision to change the focus of the attack was an inspired one as well as a remarkable physical feat. At dawn, the crusaders launched their onslaught, desperate to capitalize on their advantage. First of all, they brought a huge battering ram to bear on the outer wall in order to create a breach for the tower. An eyewitness described the intensity of the fighting
around it: “The hellish din of battle broke loose; from all parts stones . . . flew through the air, and arrows pelted like rain. But God’s servants, resolute in their faith, regardless of the outcome of death or immediate vengeance on the pagans, endured this patiently. . . . Defenders rained down upon the Christians stones, arrows, flaming wood and straw, and threw mallets of wood wrapped with ignited pitch, wax, sulphur, tow and rags on the machines. The deeds performed in the day-long battle were so marvellous that we doubt that history recorded any greater.”
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After hours of fighting, the crusaders’ muscle power thrust the metal-tipped monster through the stonework to make the first breach. As the day ended they were now poised for the final assault; the battle for Jerusalem was at a pivotal juncture; as one contemporary wrote: “With the coming of night, fear settled on the two groups . . . alertness, labour and sleepless anxiety prevailed in both camps, and on our side confident hope, on theirs, gnawing dismay.”
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At daybreak, the struggle began again. Godfrey himself commanded the battle from inside the great siege tower and the unwieldy device was heaved through a lethal storm of rocks and flames to within a few feet of the curtain wall. One stone decapitated a man who stood next to the duke, but Godfrey fought on undaunted. The tower was about six feet above the defenses and this differential proved crucial because the men on the top story could pin down the defenders. The Muslims even deployed a form of Greek fire—a naphtha-based substance that could not be extinguished by water. Fortunately local Christians had warned the crusaders about this and a store of vinegar was on hand to quell the flames. Nonetheless, the Muslims’ stubborn resistance started to sap both the morale and the energy of the Christians; many of their siege weapons had been shattered and they had taken heavy casualties. Around midday, however, a crusader archer began to shoot blazing arrows into the Saracens opposite the siege tower. The fire raged with particular intensity—perhaps it had ignited some of the Muslims’ own flammable weapons—and the defenders had to flee from the walls. Here was the crusaders’ opportunity: hurriedly, Godfrey ordered the siege tower’s drawbridge to be lowered and it swung onto the walls. Two brothers, Ludolf and Englebert of Tournai, are named as the first men to leap onto the ramparts. With this breach made, ladders were laid against the walls and Godfrey’s men poured into the north of the city.
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Raymond had
made little headway to the southwest but as news of the breakthrough spread, Muslim resistance quickly collapsed.

The combined tensions of the three-year march, the terrible suffering at the siege of Antioch, and the fierce fight outside Jerusalem, compounded by their uncompromising religious fervor, contributed to the crusaders unleashing savagery and slaughter on an appalling scale. They had liberated the holy city, now they sought to purge it of unbelievers. “Some of the pagans were mercifully beheaded, others pierced by arrows plunged from towers, and yet others, tortured for a long time, were burned to death in searing flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet lay in the houses and streets, and indeed there was a running to and fro of men and knights over the corpses.”
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A group of Muslims on the roof of the Temple of Solomon surrendered, only to be killed soon afterward. Women and children were not spared in this brutal orgy of destruction. The crusaders “seized infants by the soles of their feet from their mothers’ laps or their cradles and dashed them against walls or broke their necks; they were slaughtering some with weapons [others] with stones; they were sparing absolutely no gentile of any place or kind.”
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The horror of these events has left an indelible stain on Muslim–Christian relations down the centuries.

The crusaders also seized huge amounts of booty: gold, silver, precious stones, and horses. Men took property for themselves; if a crusader entered and stayed in a house, he was entitled to keep it. Some even slit open the stomachs of Muslims they suspected had swallowed valuables in an attempt to conceal them from the crusaders. “No one has ever seen or heard of such a slaughter of the pagans, for they were burned on pyres like pyramids,” an eyewitness reported.
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Yet, amid this almost incomprehensible violence, the crusaders’ thoughts turned to devotion. One later writer vividly evoked this combination of religious zeal and extreme brutality, a blend that does not sit well with our own sensibilities:

Three weeks later, at the Battle of Ascalon, the crusaders defeated a large Egyptian army to seal the campaign’s success; the Holy Land was in Christian hands. The conquest of Jerusalem was an astonishing achievement: “The Lord has certainly renewed His miracles of old” was one analysis.
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The crusaders seized the spoils of war—they had, after all, incurred huge expenses in the course of their journey, and many needed money to return home. For those who had driven themselves on to Jerusalem, there is little doubt that religious motives were at the heart of their experience: “The children of the Apostles freed the city for God and the Fathers,” as one contemporary stated.
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Their growing military cohesion and the divisions within the Muslim world both contributed to their victory, but piety was their ultimate motive. It is one of history’s ironies, however, that Pope Urban did not live to learn of the crusade’s success: he died in July 1099.

Godfrey’s actions during the siege, along with Raymond’s abrasive personality, led to the former being elected to rule this new land. Such was Godfrey’s piety, however, that he declined a crown, not wishing to be a king in the land of the Lord; instead he took the more modest title Advocate of the Holy Sepulchre.
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In the autumn of 1099 many crusaders prepared to leave for the West, exhausted but exultant. These men returned as heroes, celebrated in verse and chronicles and feted for their achievements: models for future generations to emulate.
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Perhaps only three hundred knights remained in the nascent Christian state of Jerusalem—a figure that entirely demolishes the old charge that most crusaders were simply in search of new lands; for the majority at least, their dearest wish was a safe voyage back to their families and loved ones. In the Muslim world there was, in some quarters at least, shock and outrage at these events. Yet neither the caliph, nor the Seljuk sultan, dispatched an army to take on the new arrivals. Such neglect was vital to the Frankish settlers because it allowed them a breathing space to consolidate their conquest and to establish Catholic rule in the Holy Land and a presence that would endure for almost two hundred years.

“MAY GOD’S CURSE BE UPON THEM!”

I
n the decade after the capture of Jerusalem the Franks set up four states in the Levant: the kingdom of Jerusalem; the county of Tripoli (roughly equivalent in area to the modern Lebanon), the principality of Antioch (coastal Syria), and, inland, astride the River Euphrates, the county of Edessa. The religious and ethnic mix of these regions was bewildering: Armenians, Greek Orthodox, Maronites, Jacobites, Nestorians, Sunni Muslims, Shi’a Muslims, splinters within the Shi’a such as the Nizari (known as the Assassins), as well as the Jews and the Zoroastrians. The fact that the Franks imposed their authority on such a polyglot society was one of their most remarkable—and often ignored—achievements. The early years of the Latin East were marked by a series of sieges and battles as the newcomers sought to carve out their territories but, by 1109, with a couple of exceptions on the coast (Tyre did not fall until 1124 and Ascalon in 1153), they had established the full extent of their lands. A detailed narrative of these conquests is the purview of textbooks and, in most cases, gives the Frankish perspective; the writings of three contemporary Muslim writers will give us an alternative viewpoint. They may not provide a complete picture of the period—and they certainly contain comparable levels of bias and prejudice against their opponents—but they can offer a thought-provoking insight into the impact of the Christian invasions and a glimpse of the priorities and concerns of the Muslim population. Our three sources are Ali ibn Tahir al-Sulami, an irate Damascene preacher; Usama ibn Munqidh, a melancholy old poet and warrior; and Ibn Jubayr, a perspicacious
Spanish Muslim who visited the Levant in the course of a penitential pilgrimage.

The caliph of Baghdad offered little assistance or direction to the Syrian Muslims at the time of the First Crusade, and this lack of leadership provoked outrage among those directly affected by the Christian invasion and sparked angry protests in verse (the conventional medium for such communication at the time):

In time, jihad became the driving force of Islam’s response to the events of 1099. Jihad means “struggle” and, as we shall see, it has numerous parallels with the concept of a crusade; there is, however, a fundamental difference in their origins. The crusade was invented by Pope Urban II in 1095, but the jihad was a part of the Islamic faith from its foundation in the seventh century. The notion of holy war is found in both the Koran and the Hadith, the sayings of Muhammad, and they both stress the virtues and celestial rewards of the jihad.
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One Hadith, for example, states that “The Gates of Paradise are under the shadow of the swords”—a sentiment comparable to the crusading idea of a holy warrior finding a place in heaven.

The jihad itself has two elements, the “greater” and the “lesser” jihad. The former (al-jihad al-akbar) is the struggle against an individual’s lower self; it is a personal fight against immorality and sin. This is of paramount spiritual value, and seen by many as a necessary precursor to the lesser jihad (al-jihad al-asghar). The latter is a perpetual obligation on all Muslims to strive to extend the House of Islam (Dar al-Islam) until all mankind accepts the faith or submits to Muslim government. Non-Muslims within the House of Islam must be protected—unless they are polytheists—and should follow formally recognized religions such as Christianity and Judaism; these people must, however, pay a tax. Land outside the House of Islam is the House of War (Dar al-Harb) and there exists a permanent state of hostility between the two houses until the former is triumphant. Truces of up to ten years could be permitted.