You wish to make peace now that my men have gained the wall, Saladin remarked. You are too late. Behold, the city is mine! And you should know how Godfrey de Bouillon slew thousands in the street, how they were slain while seeking refuge in the temple. I am hard pressed to respond with Christian blood.
Yet even as he spoke, such is the merciful nature of God, heathen banners were torn down and ladders thrust away from the wall. And when he observed this he grew furious. He directed Balian to leave, saying they would speak no further.
Nevertheless, Lord Balian rode out again next morning accompanied by various nobles. Saladin greeted them courteously. He said he would treat those inside the city neither better nor worse than Muslims were treated when Jerusalem was first conquered. Which is to say every man would be put to the sword, women and children sold into slavery. Thus would he exchange evil for evil.
Lord Balian answered rashly, saying that while those inside Jerusalem feared death and clung to life, if death should be inevitable they would kill their women and children and burn their property, leaving the Muslims not an écu. Not one woman would Saladin enslave. Not one man would be left alive to put in irons. The Chapel of the Sakkra and the Mosque al-Aqsa would be demolished, together with every other holy place. Muslims inside the walls, numbering five thousand, would be massacred. Nor would there be one animal left alive. And when we have finished this work, said Lord Balian, we will come out to fight you. We will die, but we will die free.
Saladin consulted his emirs. Then he said the Christians would be treated as captives who might ransom themselves. The price of liberty would be reckoned at ten gold bezants for a man. The value of a woman should be reckoned at five, that of a child at two. As soon as anyone paid this tribute he would be free to go, either to Antioch or under safe conduct to Alexandria for departure by sea. Those who ransomed themselves must leave Jerusalem afoot and take nothing concealed. Payment was expected within forty days, after which those who had not paid or could not pay would be enslaved for life.
So the people laid aside their weapons. And in our year of grace 1187, on the second day of October, the gates of the Holy City opened to Saladin.
By Muslim records this occurred on the twenty-seventh day of Rajab on which day centuries ago their Prophet visited Jerusalem while asleep. They say his winged steed Burac sprang from the rock in the Templum Domini, which they call Dome of the Rock, and carried the Prophet to heaven. There he spoke with Lord Jesus and with Abraham, thereupon descending safely to Mecca. This according to many pagans. Others think he was in Jerusalem that day and met Gabriel who escorted him up a ladder to celestial heights whence he gazed into hell at the dread punishment of sinners. But the faith of unbelievers is a vile repository gorged with misbelief. They argue that our Lord was born in the shade of a palm tree. Some argue that He was born in the mosque at Jerusalem and the Holy Virgin during labor gripped a pillar where the impress of her fingers may yet be seen. They believe a dark sun rising in the west will herald our last day and barbaric hordes led by Gog and Magog come to drink Lake Tiberias dry. And Dajjal with his single eye, who is Antichrist, comes riding through Palestine on a donkey followed by seventy thousand Jews. They say he will enact mock miracles to ridicule our Lord. The sun will decline in the east while a trumpet sounds. All such malignity they imagine. Is it not evident how they would destroy the Holy Church? But those who behold the light of the world will see false counsel scattered.
The gates to Jerusalem opened wide that lamentable day because of Christian wickedness, because Christians strapped on the belt of knighthood and went strutting about with pride in their eye and created factions among themselves and perverted with knavery the Holy Church. Because of this Jerusalem fell. Christians weighted down by execrable sin grew blind to the sovereign light. We hear of a pilgrim wounded in this battle when an arrow struck his nose. The shaft broke off, the barb remained. Now, this arrow came as punishment, the barb embedded to remind him. Yet he lived, proof of our Lord’s infinite mercy.
Once the city had been given up Saladin directed a crier of Islamic law to proceed to the summit of Calvary. And there, upon the rock, was the doctrine of Mahomet proclaimed. Nor was this enough. They pulled down a cross surmounting the church of the Hospital, spat upon it, kicked it with their feet and dragged it through excrement. Nor was this enough. They pulled down a gold cross adorning the Templum Domini to the accompaniment of loud cries, cries of rage from Christians, of joy from pagans. Three days they carried this gold cross through the streets and beat it with sticks. Infidel priests or bishops, which in their tongue Saracens call fakihs, marched rudely into the Temple of the Lord, which they call Beithhalla, and with ugly bellowings undertook to cleanse it, but defiled the Temple by shouting through impure lips. Allahu Akbar! Allahu Akbar!
One week after Saladin took Jerusalem his followers rejoiced in the mosque al-Aqsa. The qadi of Damascus spoke. They say that his voice was powerful but trembled slightly and he wore a black robe. Glory to God, said he, who has granted Islam this triumph, who has returned Jerusalem to the fold after a century of proscription. Honor to this army chosen
