Today in history marks another epic though largely forgotten battle in the long war between Islam and Christendom.
A few weeks after liberating Jerusalem from Muslim control in mid-July 1099, the First Crusaders faced their first major challenge: a massive Muslim army, consisting of Egyptians, North Africans, Arabs, sub-Saharan Africans, and Turks. The army was led by al-Afdal Shahanshah (1066-1122), the vizier and effective ruler of Fatimid Egypt, and was making its way to besiege Jerusalem and annihilate the insolent Christians once and for all.
Although the Sunni Turks and Shia Fatimids had been at each other’s throats for decades, “fear of the Christians … drew them together.” For Robert the Monk, who tended to see temporal conflicts as reflective of eternal ones, that “writhing serpent,” Satan, had “in his venom” stirred up the “whole of the Orient.”
Rather than taking a defensive posture and barricading Jerusalem, Godfrey de Bouillon, the de facto king of Jerusalem, decided to go out and give battle with his entire army on August 10. Knowing that everything was on the line—and that they were outnumbered by and far from refreshed as the Fatimid army—the knights marched barefoot in the desert heat, carrying a fragment of the True Cross, which had been recovered on May 5 in Jerusalem, while loudly imploring God for aid.
They met and were augmented by the forces of Count Raymond and the two Roberts, the counts of Normandy and Flanders. Altogether the Crusader army consisted of about one thousand knights and ten thousand infantrymen; the Muslim army was as much as five times larger.
On August 11, the Franks, having neared the coastal city of Ascalon, where al-Afdal’s forces were encamped, captured Muslim spies and ascertained the opposing army’s status and layout. With such information, Godfrey decided that a surprise attack was in order. Thus, today in history, at the crack of dawn on August 12, the tired Christian fighters attended mass, partook of communion, and then, once again, rode out to victory or death.
And again, as at Antioch, the much larger and overconfident Muslim army was taken unawares; the vizier was shocked to learn that, instead of abandoning or at least barricading themselves inside Jerusalem, the Christian infidels had actually dared to rush out and intercept him. “Either they have lost their senses,” he exclaimed before his chiefs, “or they love death as much as life.” Either way, “exterminate them from the earth!”
A wild battle ensued and continued for the greater part of the day, though the Christians had the upper hand. “[W]ith drawn swords in the hands of his followers,” Albert writes, “Godfrey visited severe destruction on the enemy…” Robert of Normandy also distinguished himself in battle, slaughtering the vizier’s own standard bearer; and Raymond “killed innumerable enemies and forced many more to plunge in the sea.” By late afternoon, thousands of Muslims lay dead or dying on the sands outside the walls of Ascalon; the rest fled back to Egypt—even as the Crusaders “pursued the enemies of the Cross of Christ.”
The reader is left to muse on Vizier al-Afdal’s lamentation to Allah and his prophet, reportedly made moments before his army was routed by the Crusaders (as recorded in Robert the Monk’s contemporary account, which was informed by a Muslim deserter):
O Mahommed, our master and protector, where is your strength?… Why have you abandoned your people like this to be mercilessly destroyed and dispersed and killed by a wretchedly poor and ragged people, a people who are the scrapings of other races, the lees, rust and slag of the whole human race…. Are those who have such power really men or are they in fact gods from Hell? Maybe Hell split asunder and let these men spew forth…. If they were really men they would fear death; but as it is they have no fear of returning to the Hell from which they emerged…. O Mahommed, Mahommed…. This is what the Christians say to insult us: that the power of the Crucified One is greater than yours because he is powerful on earth and in heaven. And it certainly seems to be the case now that those who place their trust in him win, whilst those who revere you are defeated…. So whose fault is it that we are reduced to this state? Why should we give you every honor and receive nothing in return? O Jerusalem … if you ever fall into our hands I shall raze you to the ground and completely destroy the Sepulchre of the One buried in you.
Note: This article was excerpted from Raymond Ibrahim’s Book “Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam”.
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