The preaching of a new monotheistic religion by the Arab Prophet Muhammad (died 632) initiated the most spectacular campaign of conquest the Western world had seen since that of Alexander the Great in the fourth century BC. Between 633 and 732, the Arabs, professing the faith of Islam that Muhammad had founded, created an empire that stretched from Afghanistan in the east to the Pyrenees in the west. A consequence of the Arab victories was that Christian power was extinguished not only in its historic centre in the Holy Land, but also in Egypt, Syria, North Africa and Spain, while the Christian empire of Byzantium, the surviving element of the Roman Empire with its capital at Constantinople, was brought under continuous pressure in Asia Minor. In 1071 the Seljuk Turks, a Central Asian nomadic horse people who had recently converted to Islam, defeated the Byzantine army at Manzikert, on Asia Minor’s border with the Caucasus mountains, and overran Asia Minor, threatening Constantinople and Christian Southern Europe.
The Byzantine Emperor Alexius I, secular leader of Eastern Christianity, was driven by the military crisis resulting from Manzikert (‘the Dreadful Day’) to appeal to Pope Urban II for Western help in 1095. Despite the opening of what would prove a definitive breach between the Latin Christianity of the West (Roman Catholicism) and the Greek Christianity of the East (Orthodoxy) in the Great Schism of 1054, Urban decided to respond to Alexius’s appeal. At the Synod of Clermont he therefore preached a call to the Christian knights of the West to mount against Muslim power a military campaign that would become known as the First Crusade.
The Crusade departed in 1096, reached Constantinople but then, falling out with the Emperor Alexius, declined to join him in the recapture of Asia Minor and pressed on to seize the Holy Land and Jerusalem, which had become the Crusade’s popular target. The Holy City fell to the Crusaders on 18 July 1099. In the aftermath of the conquest, the leaders of the Crusade set themselves up as rulers in the Holy Land and its adjoining territories, establishing the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Counties of Tripoli and Edessa and the Principality of Antioch.
These ‘Latin Kingdoms’ came under immediate counter-attack from the neighbouring regions of the Islamic Caliphate, with seats at Cairo and Baghdad, and from the Muslim Turks. Islam was a warrior society, whose military class practised a style of warfare which, in its emphasis on courage, skill at arms, and horsemanship, closely resembled the chivalry of the Western knight. Usǡmah Ibn-Munqidh was a representative of the Muslim knightly class. His description of the attack on the Crusader fortress of Kafartāb — KafrTab, south-westof Aleppo in Syria — fascinates both because of its depiction of the Muslim idea of military honour, and also because the details of siege warfare revealed exactly follow those of the Jews in the defence of Jerusalem more than a thousand years earlier. Mining (and counter-mining) with the object of burning away timber props supporting the excavation, was originally an Assyrian invention of the first millennium BC. It would nevertheless continue in use until gunpowder became available to siege engineers in the sixteenth century AD.
Another illustration I witnessed in the year 509 [Islamic calendar; 1131 AD]. My father (may Allah’s mercy rest upon his soul!) had set out at the head of the army to join the Isbaslar Bursuq ibn-Bursuq (may Allah’s mercy rest upon his soul!), who had arrived on an expedition ordered by the Sultan. Bursuq commanded a huge army including a large number of amirs, among whom were the Amir-al-Juyush [commander of the armies] Uzbech the lord of al-Mawsil, Sunqur Dirāz the lord of al-Rahabah, the Amir Kundughadi, al-Hājib al-Kabir [Grand Chamberlain] Baktimur, Zanki ibn-Bursuq (who was a veritable hero), Tamirak, Ismā‘il al-Bakji, and others. They camped before Kafartāb, in which were the two brothers of Theophile at the head of the Franks [Crusaders], and attacked it. The troops from Khurasan entered the trench and began to dig an underground tunnel. Convinced that they were on the point of perdition, the Franks set the castle on fire. The roofs were burned and fell upon the horses, beasts of burden, sheep, pigs and captives - all of whom were burned up. The Franks remained clinging to the walls at the top of the castle.
It occurred to me to enter the underground tunnel and inspect it. So I went down in the trench, while the arrows and stones were falling on us like rain, and entered the tunnel. There I was struck with the great wisdom with which the digging was executed. The tunnel was dug from the trench to the barbican. On the sides of the tunnel were set up two pillars, across which stretched a plank to prevent the earth above it from falling down. The whole tunnel had such a framework of wood that extended as far as the foundation of the tower. The tunnel was narrow. it was nothing but a means to provide access to the tower. As soon as they got to the tower, they enlarged the tunnel in the wall of the tower, supported it on timbers and began to carry out, a little at a time, the splinters of stone produced by boring. The floor of the tunnel, on account of the dust caused by the digging, was converted into mud. Having made the inspection, I went on without the troops of Khursān recognizing me. Had they recognized me, they would not have let me off without the payment of a heavy tribute.
They then began to cut dry wood and stuff the tunnel with it. Early the next morning they set it on fire. We had just at that time put on our arms and marched, under a great shower of stones and arrows, to the trench in order to make an onslaught on the castle as soon as its tower tumbled over. As soon as the fire began to have its effect, the layers of mortar between the stones of the wall began to fall. Then a crack was made. The crack became wider and wider and the tower fell. We had assumed that when the tower would fall we should be able to enter as far as our enemy. But only the outer face of the wall fell, while the inner wall remained intact. We stood there until the sun became too hot for us, and then returned to our tents after a great deal of damage had been inflicted on us by the stones which were hurled against us.
After resting until noontime, there set out all of a sudden a footman from our ranks, singlehanded and carrying his sword and shield. He marched to the wall of the tower which had fallen, and the sides of which had become like the steps of a ladder, and climbed on it until he got as far as its highest point. As soon as the other men of the army saw him, about ten of them followed him hastily in full armour and climbed one after the other until they got to the tower, while the Franks were not conscious of their movements. We in turn put on our armour in our tents and advanced. Many climbed the tower before all our army had wholly arrived.
The Franks now turned upon our men and shot their arrows at them. They wounded the man who was first to climb. So he descended. But the other men continued to climb in succession until they stood facing the Franks on one of the tower walls between two bastions. Right in front of them stood a tower the door of which was guarded by a cavalier in full armour carrying his shield and lance, preventing entrance to the tower. On top of that tower were a band of Franks, attacking our men with arrows and stones. One of the Turks climbed, under our very eyes, and started walking towards the tower, in the face of death, until he approached the tower and hurled a bottle of naphtha on those who were on top of it. The naphtha flashed like a meteor falling upon those hard stones, while the men who were there threw themselves on the ground for fear of being burnt. The Turk then came back to us.
Another Turk now climbed and started walking on the same wall between the two bastions. He was carrying his sword and shield. There came out to meet him from the tower, at the door of which stood a knight, a Frank wearing double-linked mail and carrying a spear in his hand, but not equipped with a shield. The Turk, sword in hand, encountered him. The Frank smote him with the spear, but the Turk warded off the point of the spear with his shield and, notwithstanding the spear, advanced towards the Frank. The latter took to flight and turned his back, leaning forward, like one who wanted to kneel, in order to protect his head. The Turk dealt him a number of blows which had no effect whatsoever, and he went on walking until he entered the tower.
Our men proved too numerous and too strong for the enemy. So the latter delivered the castle, and the captives came down to the tents of Bursuq ibn-Bursuq.
Among those who were assembled in the large tent of Bursuq ibn-Bursuq in order to set for themselves a price for their liberty, I recognized that same man who had set out with his spear against the Turk. He, who was a sergeant, stood up and said, ‘How much do ye want from me?’ They said, ‘We demand six hundred dinars.’ He pooh-poohed them, saying, ‘I am a sergeant. My stipend is two dinars a month. Wherefrom can I get you six hundred dinars?’ And saying this, he went back and sat among his companions. And he was huge in size. Seeing him, the Amir al-Sayyid al-Sharif, who was one of the leading amirs, said to my father (may Allah’s mercy rest upon his soul!), ‘O my brother, seest thou what manner of people these are? In Allah we seek refuge against them.’
By the decree of Allah (worthy of admiration is He!) our army departed from Kafartab to Danith and were surprised to meet early Tuesday morning, the twenty-third of Rabi’ II [the fourth month of the Muslim calendar, corresponding roughly to April], the army of Antioch. The capitulation of Kafartab took place on Friday, the twelfth of Rabi’ II. The Amir al-Sayyid (may Allah’s mercy rest upon his soul!) was killed, together with a large body of Muslims.
My father (may Allah’s mercy rest upon his soul!) with whom I had parted at Kafartab returned [to Kafartāb] after the army had been defeated. We were still at Kafartab guarding it with the intention of rebuilding it; for the isbaslar [castellan] had delivered it into our hands. We were bringing out the captives, each two chained to one man from Shayzar. Some of them had half of their bodies burned and their legs remained. Others were dead by fire. I saw in what befell them a great object lesson. We then left Kafartāb and returned to Shayzar in the company of my father (may Allah’s mercy rest upon his soul!), who had lost all the tents, loads, mules, camels and baggage he had, and whose army was dispersed.