1129: Syria
battle scars
The franks (may God confound them) unanimously agreed to march on damascus and capture it. So they assembled a large host, and the
lord of Edessa and tell Bashir joined them, as
did the lord of antioch. The lord of antioch
encamped at Shayzar on his way to damascus.
When the lord of antioch left for damascus,
all the muslims of Syria assembled to march
on Kafartab. They sent one of our comrades
called Qunayb ibn malik to spy on Kafartab
for them during the night.
One of the marvels that occurred during
that battle with the franks was the following.
in the army of Hama, there were two Kurdish
brothers, one of them named Badr and the other
named ‘annaz. now, this ‘annaz had bad eyesight. and when the franks were defeated and
killed, some of the men cut off their heads and
hung them off their saddle straps. So ‘annaz cut
off a head and hung it from his saddle strap.
a group of men from the army of Hama
saw him and said to him, “Hey ‘annaz, what’s
with that head you have with you?”
“Glory be to God,” he replied, “for what hap-
pened between this man and me—i killed him.”
“Oh man,” they told him, “that’s the head
of your brother Badr!”
So he looked at the head, examining it. Sure
enough, it was the head of his brother. and so
in his shame before the men, he left Hama. We
never knew where he set off for, nor did we ever
hear any further news of him. But it was the
franks who killed his brother Badr during that
battle, may God the Exalted confound them.
Usama ibn Munqidh, from The Book of
Contemplation. Born in 1095, the same year that
Pope Urban II inaugurated the First Crusade at
the Council of Clermont, Usama became one of the
primary Muslim historians of the encounters between
Christianity and Islam. He fought Frankish infidels
as a young man and later in life joined the court
of Sultan Saladin, who united Egypt with Syria
and brought Jerusalem back under Muslim control.
Usama died in 1188 at the age of ninety-three.
