The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades

The Politically incorrect Guide to Islam(and theCrusade

wereoverc ome and our men seize d many men end women in

the temple, killing them or keeping themalive asthey saw fit. On

the roof of the temple there was a great crowd of pagans of both

sexes, to whom Tancred and Gaston de Beert gave their banners

Ito provide them with protection]. Then the crusadersscatt ered

throu ghout the city, seizi ng gold and silve r, horse sand mules ,

and house s full of all sorts of goods. Afte rwar ds ou r men

we nt rej oi ci ng an d we epi ng fo r jo y to ad ore the sepulchre

of our Saviour Jesus and there discharged their debt toHim!

It is jarr ing to our moder n sens ibil itie s to read a posi tive acco unt of
such a wanton massacre: such is the difference between the attitudes and
assump tions of those days and our own. Simil arly, three princ ipal Cru-
lade leaders, Archbishop Daimbert; Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon; and Ray-
mond, Count of Toulouse; boasted to Pope Paschal lI in September 1099
about the Crusaders' Jerusalem exploits; "And if you desire to know what
was done with the enemy who were foundthere, know that in Solomon's
porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the Saracens up to
the knees of their horses."' Significantly, Godfrey himself, one of the most
respe cted Crusad eleaders,did not partic ipate in the slaugh ter; perha ps
he was more aware than the rank-and-file soldiers of what a betrayal this
behavior represented to the Crusaders' principles.
Balderic, a bishop and author of an early twelfth-century history of
Jerusalem, reports that the Crusaders killed between twenty and thirty
tho usa nd peop le in the city .' Tha t is like ly exa gge rat ed, but Mus lim
so urc es put th e num ber eve n hi ghe r. Alt hou gh th e ea rli est Mus li m
source s do not specif y a death count, Ibn al-Jawzi, writin g about a hun-
dred years after the event, says that the Crusaders "killed more than seventy
thousand Muslims" in Jerusalem. Ibn al-Athir, a contemporary ofSaladin,
the Muslim leader who gained impressive victories over the Cru-