The Politically Incorrectguide to Islam (and the Crusadespe op le in Je ru sa le m to bl ee d tha t mu ch , ev en if it s po pu la ti on hadswe lle d
with ref uge es fro m the surr oun din g reg ion s. The fact that thesack of Jerusalem
was not out of the ordinaryprobably accounts for thelac oni c natu re of the earl ies t
Mus lim acc oun ts of the inci den t. Aro und1160, two Syrian chroniclers, al-'Azimi
and Ibn al-Qalanisi, wrote sepa-rately of the sack. Neither one offered an estimate
of the numbers killed. Al-'Azi mi sai d onl y tha t the Cru sade rs "tu rne d to
Jer usal em andcon-quered it from the hands of the Egyptia ns. Godfr ey took it.
They burnedthe Chur ch of the Jews ." Ibn al-Qala nis i add ed a bit more det ail :
"Th e Franks stormed the town and gained possession of it. Anumber of the
townsfolk fled to the sanctuaryand a great host were killed. The Jewsassemb led in
the synago gue, and the Franks binned it over their heads.The san ctu ar y was
sur ren der ed to the m on gua ran tee of saf ely on 22She ban [Ju ly 14J of thi s
year , and they des tro yed the shri nes and thetomb of Abraham,' It wasn't until
later that Muslim writers realized the
propaganda value of stressing (and inflating) the death totals,
I
In any event, it is a matter of recordthatMuslim armies frequentlybeha ved in
exac tly the same way when enter ing a conq uere d city. This is not to excuse the
Crusad ers' conduc t by point ing to similar incide nts and sugges ting that
"everyb ody does it,"asIslam ic apolo gists freque ntlydo toda y when conf ront ed
with the rea litie s of moder n jiha d terr oris mI One atrocity does not excuse
another. But it does illustrate that the Crusaders' behavior in Jerusalem was
consistent with that of other armies of the period—since all states subscribed to the
same notions of siege and resistance. Inde ed.. in 1148 , Musl im com mand er
Nur ed-Din did not hesi tate toord er the kill ing of eve ry Chr isti an in Alep po.
In 126 8, when the jih adforces of the Mamluk sultan Baybars took Antioch from
the Crusader Baybars was annoyed to find that the Crusader ruler, Count
BohemianVI, had already left the city. He wrote to Bohemond to make sure he
knew what his men had done in Antioch