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Inquiry on the Crusades
INQUIRY ON THE CRUSADES
In class we will complete an inquiry on actions during the Crusades. We will address the following
inquiry questions:
 To what extent does religious fervor justify actions that are incongruent with the principles,
texts, or teachings of that religious tradition?
 To what extent is force justified in order to claim the Holy Land? From the Christian
perspective? The Muslim perspective?
 What stereotypes are promulgated by these accounts, and why?.
The perspectives will be assigned as follows (you will be working in pairs):
Anna Comnena (page 365 Worlds of History Volume I)
Ibn Al-Qalanisi (in this packet)
Pope Urban II - record of Pope Urban’s speech (page 353)
Solomon bar Simpson (page 359 Worlds of History Volume I)
Raymond of St. Giles (page 377 Worlds of History Volume I)
Ibn Al-Athir (page 381 Worlds of History Volume I)
Mohammed Ben Zeky (in this packet)
Anonymous Jewish Pilgrim in Egypt (page 383 Worlds of History Volume I)
1. Review Strayer Chapter 10 on the Crusades.
2. Read the document assigned. See page xvi in Reilly for a table of contents.
3. Use POV How to sheet to analyze the document (Why does the author say what he says in the way that
he says it?)
4. Next, read 2 additional documents from the list.
5. Think about what your point of view is, brainstorm what you can you learn about yourself from
the document. Consider the inquiry topics.
6. Your group should write a short 1-minute speech that justifies your action and/or lambasts the
other side(s). Make sure you point of view comes across very clearly. Everyone should take part
in the small group discussion but choose one person to be the speaker if more than one person
assigned. You should use prior knowledge and information from the other documents (feel free
to research these people or the Crusades more as necessary, and check what Worlds of History has
on this period).
7. In class we will do a roundtable in which each group will present their speeches while keeping in
character. After the speeches there will be a question and answer session based on the inquiry
topics in Socratic Seminar format.
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Inquiry on the Crusades
The Siege of Tyre in 1111-12, according to the Chronicle of Ibn Al-Qalanisi
One of the most interesting contemporary accounts of the crusades comes from a twelfth-century resident of Damascus.
Ibn Al-Qalanisi was a distinguished scholar in Damascus, and was twice elected the mayor of that city. His
Chronicle begins in 1097 with an account of the First Crusade, and continues on to 1159, one year before his death
at the age of 90. This work contains many colourful narratives of warfare between Crusaders and Muslims, including
the following account of the siege of Tyre in 1111-1112. The Crusaders were led by King Baldwin I of Jerusalem.
This account is notable for its lengthy description of the fighting that took place using siege towers.
In this year king Baldwin assembled all whom he could of the franks and marched to the port of
Tyre. The governor ‘Izz al-Mulk and the citizens wrote in haste to Zahir al-Din Atabek at
Damascus, asking him for help and reinforcements and promising to surrender the city to him.
They besought him to make haste to send a large number of Turks and urged that they should come
to them speedily to assist and strengthen them, for should there be any delay in sending them
assistance necessity would compel them to surrender the city to the Franks, as they despaired of help
from al-Afdal, the ruler of Egypt. The atabek dispatched with all speed a large contingent of Turks,
consisting of over two hundred horsemen, archers of proven worth, with full equipment. In
addition to this contingent, the citizens were reinforced by numbers of footsoldiers from Tyre and
Jabal ‘Amilah who embraced their cause, together with footsoldiers from Damascus. The atabek
also prepared to dispatch another detachment. When Baldwin learned of the arrangement between
atabek and the people of Tyre, he made haste to invest it with the forces which he had assembled,
on 25th First Jumada 505 (29th November, 1111). He ordered the fruit trees and palms to be cut
down and constructed permanent dwellings before the city, and delivered regular assaults upon it on
several occasions, only to retire discomfited and frustrated in his object. It is said that in one attack
the people of Tyre discharged twenty thousand arrows in a single day.
Zahir al-Din on learning that the Franks had invested Tyre marched out and made his camp
at Banyas, whence he dispatched his squadrons together with bands of brigands into the territories
of the Franks with a free hand of plunder, kill, rob, destroy and burn, with the object of causing
them vexation and forcing them to abandon the siege. The second contingent which he sent to Tyre
attempted to enter the town but was unable to gain entrance. Zahir al-Din himself marched to alHabis, a strong and forbidding castle in the Sawad, and after a vigorous attack captured it by the
sword and put the entire garrison to death. The Franks set about constructing two wooden towers
with which to make the assault on the wall of Tyre, and Zahir al-Din deployed his forces against
them so that the troops in Tyre might make a sortie and burn the towers. The Franks became aware
of his object in these manoeuvres, and having dug a trench around them on all sides, posted armed
men along it to defend both it and the towers, paying no heed either to what he might do or to the
raids which were made upon their territories and slaughter their inhabitants. When the winter
storms commenced, they did no harm to the Franks since they were encamped on hard, sandy soil,
while the Turks on the contrary suffered great hardships and bitter distress in their position, yet they
did not cease from raiding and making booty, and cutting off supplies and provisions from the
Franks, and seizing all that was conveyed to them.
The Turks also cut the mole by which access was gained to Sidon, in order to cut off
supplies from it as well, whereupon they changed their tactics and sent out requests to all parts for
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Inquiry on the Crusades
supplies to be sent to them by sea. Zahir al-Din, realizing this, set out with a detachment of his
‘askar to the district of Sidon and raided its suburbs, killing a number of the seamen and burning
about twenty vessels on the shore. And withal he did not neglect to send letters to the men of Tyre,
encouraging them and urging them to perseverance in the face of the Franks and zeal in fighting
against them.
The construction of the two towers and the battering-rams to be placed with them was
completed in about seventy-five days, and the 10th Sha ‘ban (11th February) they began to be moved
forward and employed in the attack. They were brought close to the city wall and fierce fighting
went on round about them. The height of the smaller tower exceeded forty cubits [one cubit is
equal to about 20 inches] and that of the greater exceeded fifty cubits. On 1st Ramadan (2nd March)
the men of Tyre made a sortie from the bastions with Greek fire, firewood, pitch, and incendiary
equipment, and being unable to penetrate to either of the towers, threw the fire close to the smaller
one where the Franks could not protect it from the flames. The wind blew the fire on to the smaller
tower, which was completely burned after severe fighting around it and a hand-to-hand struggle in
its defence. Many coats of mail, long shields, and other objects were recovered from it as booty.
The fire also gained the larger tower. The news spread to the Muslims that the Franks had desisted
from the attack on the town owing to their preoccupation with the fire in the tower, whereupon
they began to withdraw from the fighting around the bastions. The Franks made a vigorous attack
upon them, drove them clear of the tower, and put out the fire that had caught hold of it.
Thereafter they set a strong guard of their picked men to protect the tower and the catapults on all
sides.
They continued their assault upon the city without intermission until the end of Ramadan,
and brought the tower close up to one of the bastions of the wall, having filled in the three trenches
which were in front of it. The townsmen had recourse to the underpinning of the wall of that
bastion which was opposite the tower of the Franks and cast fire at it. The underpinning caught fire
and the face of the wall fell in front of the tower and prevented it from being moved close up to the
wall. The place which they had intended to attack was now defended only by a low wall, but as it
was commanded by the city bastions, the tower could not be brought up to that point. The Franks
cleared away the debris, and dragged the tower towards another of the bastions of the city where,
having pushed it up until it was close to the wall, they battered the wall with the rams which were
within it and shook it, so that some of the stones were dislodged from it and the townsfolk were on
the point of destruction. Thereupon a certain man of Tarabulus, one of the leaders of the seaman,
who was acquainted with forging, and possessed some understanding and experience of warfare, set
to work to construct grappling irons, with which to seize the ram, as it was butting the wall, by the
head and the sides by means of ropes, which were then pulled by the townsmen until the wooden
tower almost rocked with the vigour of their pulling on them. Sometimes the Franks themselves
would then break the ram, fearing for the safety of the tower, sometimes it would be bent aside or
rendered useless, and sometimes it was broken by means of two stones tied together and thrown
down upon it from the city wall. The Franks made a number of rams, but they were broken in this
fashion one after the other. Each of them was sixty cubits in length, and was slung in the wooden
tower with ropes and at the head of each was piece of iron weighing more than twenty pounds.
When the replacing of the battering-rams had gone on for a long time and the Franks
brought the tower close up to the wall, this same seaman took a baulk, long, tough and strong, and
erected it on the city bastion which was opposite the tower of the Franks. At the top of this was
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another baulk of wood, set crosswise and forty cubits in length, which turned on pulley wheels (by
tackles) led to a windlass in whatever direction was desired by the man in charge of it, on the same
principle as the [yards on the] masts of sailing-ships. At one end of this rotating crosspiece was an
arrow of iron, and at the other end were ropes arranged round about it as the man in charge
desired. He used to hoist on this contrivance jars of filth and impurities, in order to distract them
from the rams by upsetting the contents over them on the tower. This was very disagreeable to the
assailants and distracted them from their tasks and operations. The same sailor also took baskets of
vine leaves and rushes, and having filled them with oil, pitch, kindling wood, resin, and peelings of
canes, put fire in them, and when the fire caught he fixed them on the contrivance we have
described, so that they hung over the tower of the Franks and the fire dropped down on top of it.
They would make haste to extinguish it with vinegar and water and he would quickly hoist another,
at the same time also throwing boiling oil on the tower in small pots. This caused a great
conflagration, and when the fire extended and by spreading from one part to another increased in
violence, it overcame the two men who were in charge of the top of the tower, one of whom was
killed and the other fled below. The fire now gained control of the top storey, and being fed by the
wooden structure overcame all who were in the storeys round about, so that they were unable to
extinguish it and fled, together with the Franks who were near it. The men of Tyre then went out to
it, and plundered its contents, gaining indescribable quantity of weapons, arms and equipment as
booty.
Thereupon the Franks despaired of capturing the city and prepared to retire. They burned
the houses which they had built in their camp to dwell in, as well as many of the vessels belonging to
them on the shore, since they had removed their masts, rudders, and equipment for the towers. The
number of these vessels was about two hundred, large and small, about thirty of them being war
vessels, and they used some of them for the transport of their light baggage. They departed on the
10th Shawwal of this year (April 10th), having prosecuted the siege of Tyre for the space of four and a
half months, and proceeding to ‘Akka dispersed to their own provinces. The men of Tyre came out
and seized as booty everything that they could find, and the Turks who had been sent to assist them
returned to Damascus. The number of men whom they had lost in the fighting was about thirty,
and they received their pay and allowances there every month. No other tower of the Franks either
before or after met such a fate as befell this tower, be being burned from top to bottom, and the
cause that contributed to this was that the two towers [that of the Franks and the bastion of the city]
were equal in height; had one of them dominated the other, the lower would have been destroyed.
The number of the men of Tyre who were lost was four hundred souls, and the losses of the Franks
in this engagement, according to a reliable statement, about two thousand souls. The Tyrians,
however, did not carry out their promise to surrender the city to Zahir al-Din Atabek, and he did
not openly demand it of them, but said, “What I have done I have done only for the sake of God
and the Muslims, nor out of desire for wealth or kingdom.” Blessings and thanks were showered
upon him for his noble action, and he promised them that when a similar danger should threaten
them, he would hasten to the city and do his utmost to assist it. He then returned to Damascus,
having suffered great hardship in warring against the Franks until God delivered the men of Tyre
from their distress. The Tyrians set about repairing the damage done by the Franks to the wall,
restoring the trenches to their former state and digging them out afresh, and fortifying the city, and
the footsoldiers who were in the city dispersed.
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Inquiry on the Crusades
This text is from The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, Extracted and translated from the chronicle of Ibn AlQalanisi, translated by H.A.R. Gibb (London: Luzac & Co., 1932).
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Inquiry on the Crusades
Mohammed Ben Zeky: Sermon at Jerusalem
Given the first Friday after Saladin’s victory by Mohammed Ben Zeky.
Mohammad ben Zeky ascended the mimber, or pulpit, and commenced the khothbeh, or sermon,
by reciting the surate Falehah (the first of the Koran) from the beginning to the end. Then he said:
“May the crew of the unjust perish! Praised be to God, the master of worlds!” Then he read, 1st, the
commencement of the surate Alin’am: “Praise to God who has created the Heavens;” 2nd, a verse
of the surate Soubhana: “Praise to God who has no son;” 3rd, three verses of the surate Alkehef:
“Praises to God who has sent the book to his servant.” Then he read, 1st, the verse: “Praise to God,
and salvation to his servants;” 2nd, a verse of the surate Seba: “Praises to God to whom belongs all
that is in heaven or earth;” 3rd, several verses of the surate Falhr: “Praises to God the creator of the
Heavens.” His intention was to bring together all the Temehhoudah (praises which are contained in
the Koran). After this, he commenced the khothbeh in these terms:“Praise to God, who has raised Islamism into glory by his aid; who has abased polytheism by his
power; who rules worldly things by his will; who prolongs his blessings according to the measure of
our gratitude; who defeats infidels by his stratagems; who gives power to dynasties, according to his
justice; who has reserved future life for those who fear him, by an effort of his goodness; who
extends his shadow over his servants; who has caused his religion to triumph over all others; who
gains the victory over his servants without anyone being able to oppose him; who triumphs in his
caliph, without anyone being able to resist him; who orders what he wills, without any being able to
make objections to it; who judges according to his will, without anyone being able to avert the
execution of his decrees. I praise this God for having by his assistance rendered his elect victorious;
for the glory he has given them; for the aid he has granted to his defenders; I praise him for having
purified the house filled with pollution from the impieties of polytheism. I praise him inwardly and
outwardly. I give testimony that there is no other God but this God; that he is the only one, and has
no associate; the only one, the eternal one, who begets not, neither is he begotten, and has no equal.
I give testimony that Mahomet is his servant and his messenger, this prophet who has removed
doubts, confounded polytheism, extinguished falsehood; who traveled by night from Medina to
Jerusalem; who ascended into the heavens, and reached even the cedar Almontehy. May the eternal
felicity of God be with him, with his successor Abou Bekr Alsadic, &c.
“O men! Publish the extraordinary blessing by which God has made easy to you the recapture and
deliverance of this city which we had lost, and has made it again the centre of Islamism, after having
been during nearly a hundred years in the hands of the infidels.
This house was built and its foundations laid for the glory of God and in the fear of Heaven. For
this house is the dwelling of Abraham; the ladder of your prophet (peace be with him!); the kiblah
towards which you prayed at the commencement of Islamism, the abode of prophets, the aim of
saints, the place of revelation, the habitation of order and defense, it is situated in the land of the
gathering, the arena of the meeting; it is of this blessed land of which God speaks in his sacred book.
It was in this mosque that Mahomet prayed with the angels who approach God. It was this city to
which God sent his servant, his messenger, the word which he sent to Mary. The prophet he
honoured with a mission did not stray from the rank of his servant. For God said, the Messiah will
not deny that he is the servant of God; God has no son, and has no other God with him. Certes,
they have been in impiety, they who have said that the Messiah, the son of Mary, was God.
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“This house is the first of the two kiblah, the second of the mosques, the third of the heramein; it is
not towards it that the people come in crowds after the two mesdjed; it is towards it that the fingers
are pointed after the two places. [I suppose Mecca and Medina] If you were not of the number of
the servants whom God has chosen, certes he would not have favoured you particularly by this
advantage which has been granted to no other brave men, the honour of which no one can dispute
with you; how fortunate you are in being the soldiers of an army which has made manifest the
miracles of the prophet, which has made the expeditions of Abou Bekr, the conquests of Omar, &c.
God has rewarded you by the best of rewards in that which you have done for his prophet. He has
been grateful for the courage you have shown in punishing rebels; the blood which you have shed
for him has been acceptable to him; it has introduced you into the Paradise which is the abode of
the blessed; acknowledge, then, the value of this blessing, offer up to him necessary thanksgivings;
for God has shown for you a marked beneficence in granting you this blessing, in selecting you for
this expedition. For the gates of Heaven have been opened for this conquest; its splendour has cast
a light which has penetrated even to the deepest darkness; the angels who approach the Divine
Majesty have rejoiced at it; the eye of the prophets and the messengers has beheld it with joy. Since,
by the favour of God, you are the army which will conquer Jerusalem at the end of time, the tropp
which will raise the standards of the faith after the destruction of the prophecy.
This house, is it not that of which God spoke in his book? For he says, ‘Be he praised who made his
servant travel by night,’ &c; is this not the house which the nations have revered; towards which the
prophets came, in which the four books sent from God have been read? Is this not the house for
which God stopped the sun, under Joshua, and retarded the march of day, in order that his conquest
should be easy, and should be accelerated? Is this not the house which God committed to Moses,
and which he commanded his people to save; but, with the exception of two men, these people
would not; God was angry against these people, and cast them into the desert, to punish them for
their rebellion.
“I praise the God who has conducted you to the place from which he banished the children of
Israel; and yet these were distinguished above other nations. God has seconded you in an enterprise
in which he had abandoned other nations that had preceded you; which has caused there to be but
one opinion amongst you, whilst formerly opinions differed; rejoice that God has named you among
those who are near him, and has made of you his own army, after you became his soldiers by your
own free will. The angels (who were sent towards this house) have thanked you for having brought
hither the doctrine of the unity.
Now the powers of the heavens pray for you, and pour benedictions upon you. Preserve this gift in
you, be the fear of God. Whoever possesses it is saved. Beware of the passions, of disobedience of
falling back, of flying from an enemy. Are you eager to take advantage of the opportunity to destroy
what anguish remains? Fight for God as you ought; sacrifice yourselves to please him, you his
servants, since you are of the number of the elect. Beware that the devil do not come down among
you again, and that irreligion introduce not itself into your hearts. Did you figure to yourselves that
your swords of steel, your chosen horses, your untiring perseverance, have gained you this victory?
No, it was God; it was from him alone that your success came. Beware, servants of God after having
obtained this victory, of becoming disobedient and rebellious; for then you will be like her who cut
to pieces that which she had spun, or like him to whom we have sent our verses, and who has
rejected them; the devil has laid hold of him, and he has wandered from the faith. The holy war! the
Holy War! that is the best of your worships, the most noble of your customs; help God, and he will
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help you; hold to God, and he will hold to you; remember him, and he will remember you; do good
towards him, and he will do good towards you; endeavor to cut off every diseased member, to
destroy even to the last enemy; purify the rest of the earth of those nations with whom God and his
messenger are angry. Lop off the branches of impiety, and fear, for already the days have grown.
Vengeance of Mussulman attacks, of the Mahometan nation. God is great: he gives conquests, he
degrades impiety; learn that this is a great opportunity- seize it; it is a prey, cast yourselves upon it; it
is a booty, get possession of it. It is an important business, apply your whole means to it, give
yourselves up to it entirely; put the battalions of your tribes on the march for it. For this business
draws towards its end, and the treasuries are filled with wealth. God has already given you the
victory over these vile enemies. These enemies were equal to you, or perhaps more numerous than
you; but however that might be, he has manifested that one of you is worth twenty other men. God
will aid you as you cause his orders to be obeyed, and abstain from that which he has prohibited. He
will strengthen all us Mussulmans by a victory; if God helps you, you have no other conqueror to
fear; but if he withdraw his help from you, who will be he that shall help you after him?”
Then the preacher prayed for the Imaun Alnassir, the caliph, and said: “O God! eternalize the sultan,
thy servant, who humbles himself before thy majesty, who is grateful for thy blessings, who
cherishes the remembrance of thy favour. Preserve thy keen sword, thy brilliant star, who protects
and defends thy religion, who defends the harem! The seid, the triumphant prince, the reuniter of
the word, of the faith (that is to say, who has so acted that the Mussulman princes, with one accord,
with one unanimous feeling, marched against the infidels); the exterminator of the cross, the good of
the state and of religion (salah eddounia wa eddyn). The sultan of the Mussulmans, the purifier of
the sacred house, Aboul Modhaffer Yous-ben-Ayoub, the verifier of the power of the emir of the
believers, ; O God! grant that thy angels may surround his throne; make good the reward due to that
which he has done for the religion of Abraham; reward his actions for the sake of the Mussulman
religion. O God! Prolong for Islamism,”
Taken from Joseph Francois Michaud. The History of the Crusades. Vol. III. Translated by W. Robson
(New York: A.C. Armstrong & Son, 1881), 376-379.