Middle Nation Book Discussion: The Crusades Through Arab Eyes: Session Two

Okay, everyone. Welcome, everyone, to the second book club of the crusades through Arab eyes authored by Amin Malouf. Last time, we had stopped at the point where village Arsalan, the Roman sarduk sultan, had lost his city of Nicea to the combined forces of the eastern Romans and the Franks, both because of his underestimating of the combined forces size and regularity in terms of the army. It was a regular army, not an army of peasants like the first wave of invasion. And because of the intense rivalry that was taking place in Anatolia between the Muslim rulers the Turkish Muslim rulers especially, so there were two main strong dynasties ruling there in Anatolia.

One was the Roman Seljuks, of course, and the other was the Danish dynasty. So as we as I mentioned, Khaled Jaros Salaam lost his capital of Nicea. He it was besieged by the combined forces of the Romans and the Franks. He realized that it was impossible for him to break the siege because of the the the the difference in in war style that we mentioned last time because the Franks were were higher highly sophisticated in their in their way of defense. So they were mainly defensive so that they wore armor from head to toe.

Their cavalry wore armor from head to toe, and their mounts even wore armor. So it was especially difficult for him to break through. After that, he he was he he determined that his most valuable asset was not the cities he was able to keep because let us let me remind our listeners and readers that the Turkish tribes and the Turkish warriors were essentially Steppe Empire people, meaning that they were on horseback day and night. They they they were very sophisticated in that kind of war style, and they were fast warriors. They had their own tactics of feigned retreat and hit and run, that kind of thing.

So speed was of the essence, and they were always what can you say? They were always on horseback. They could they they they used archery was was one of their main was one of their strongest assets. So just to sum up this point, it was made the decision was made by that was more important for him after he had determined that it was that his his family was safe. It was more important for him to to keep the warriors, to keep the army intact than to keep the city because the city was just recently acquired by his father.

So it it it wasn't, like, a lifetime ago. It was very, very near. So cities come and go in in his own logic, and I think it was the right decision to make. And so he just what he did is that he moved his capital from Nicaea to Konya, which is far further to the east and more central in Anatolia. He did yeah.

He come to an an agreement with his rival, the danishment, to stop hostilities. Not only did they stop hostilities, they agreed on a on an alliance in order to face the grave danger that was now posed by the Eastern Romans and the Franks because they determined that the sea a sea of hostilities or a a truce was known was no longer enough. They had to work together to to face this new danger. So they determined that they would face the Frankish army after they had lost the city of Nicea near a city called Durelio or Durelium depending on the on the region you're uttering the word from. And in this battle, it was determined that the Muslims would lay in wait for the army of the Franks and use the element of surprise against them.

So and his and his army, they waited for the Franks in in a in a certain mountain pass, and they used the element of surprise against this army. However, again, the Muslims still were not fully adapted to this new style of warfare, this new defensive style of warfare. So at the beginning of the of the of the of the battle, some of the Frank's army had sustained losses, but it was apparent that it wasn't enough because, again, the the the the armor of the Franks was was very, you know, I mean, it was very strong. And so many of the arrows that were shot by the the the Muslim army simply deflected, and it was also determined or it was also found out that this army was not the entire Frankish Frankish army. So another second army was coming.

So and his and his and his army or his generals found out that this wasn't was merely a a reconnaissance or more of, like, vanguard of the army, not the entire army. And so they they thought to themselves that if this was just the vanguard, then we would have serious trouble. This kind of of of armored troops is not going to be easy to deal with. And it it was yeah. It it it soon came apparent because the the Muslim cavalry engaged with the French cavalry, and they did sustain a lot of losses on their side as well.

So having a second component of the army made things seem worse for Khaleid Jaros Salaam. And to make things even worse, third third contingent of the army appeared behind the Muslim forces. So a decision was made again by Khaled Rasalam to retreat, and it was more of a panicky retreat, so to speak, since that even his his tragedy was left on the battlefield. So it was seized, of course, by French army, and now it became apparent that the the difference in style had to be adapted fully. Otherwise, the Muslim are and the Muslim the Turkish Muslim warriors would always sustain heavy losses whenever engaging with the Franks.

And the author made a remark that not not before four years would the the Muslim army in Anatolia exact revenge against the French arm. And so by at this point, we closed chapter one, and we also come to the conclusion that the French army did pass through Anatolia. They were able to make it to the far north of the. So they reached Antioch or the outskirts of Antioch, which was held by a by an and called Yarisien. And, before we, move on to Anklaq, I would just love to hear if our, speakers have any comments about this particular incident.

I really we really appreciate the summary. Just one of the things that stood out to me very, very briefly was just the, as you pointed out, the kind of warfare that Khilid Yer Salaam and Danishmended were were accustomed to, sort of cavalry archers, quick agile attacks retreat, agile attacks retreat, and just how strange it was, this this foreign force that seemed like they didn't care. So it's just kind of like modern analogy of tanks versus something else, you know, something that you're not expecting tanks and it's just like, oh, well, that's just one tank, but then all of a sudden you see a second, third tank show up. I can understand I can only imagine actually the fear that the generals at that time would have faced to have had such a plan and to have been so assured, to have had what they thought was the upper ground only to see that their calculations were entirely entirely flawed and wrong. SubhanAllah.

Just sometimes, honestly, reading this chapter, reading a lot of this book, there's a sort of empathetic dread that kind of you kinda feel like what what would have been going through their minds at that time and then, you know, to have abandoned I I don't wanna say abandoned, but to have had to retreat. But then as as we know towards end of the chapter, to have seen or have known that much of your army met their demise because of these these tactics. I can scarcely imagine the kind of burden that would have been. That was just something that came to mind when thinking about the end of this chapter.

Yeah. Absolutely, Rebecca. I mean, the element of surprise was I mean, you could extend this to to to comment or to make an a conclusion regarding the whole first invasion of the French. So the amount of surprise was then took all of the Muslim rulers in the region all of the Muslims in the region, generally, it took them by surprise. So it was a surprise in terms of who who those people were coming from, where they were coming from, and it was a surprise in terms of their, war style, their their have their heavy armor and that kind of thing.

So yeah. And it did help a lot in in in the way they were able to access the and to acquire cities. Karim or brother Karim, please raise your hand.

Yeah. It's it's a great point. Exactly this one. And I wouldn't say it's just the surprise, but I think it's a lot of, like, kind of psychological warfare. You you you feel like the it it like, realistically, the Arabs or the rulers of that time, they could have immediately destroyed them.

You know? Like, they they didn't have the numbers. They didn't have the economy. They didn't have, like, the resources. You know?

Like, these people who came, the French, they could have been eliminated from the start. Right? But you can feel that there is this, as you said, psychological paralysis kinda, like, you know, who are these barbarians, these, you know, blonde guys with long hair. Like, I feel a lot of it was just psychological rather than realistically somehow, you know, physical or material strength or you know? So that was just a point that I wanted to highlight that sometimes we are defeated just by our perception of something rather than the reality of something.

Right? So I think that the rules of that time should have been, you know, more based or should have tried to be more grounded in the reality rather than in what was being made up in their heads. You know?

Absolutely. Yes. For sure. Some narrow interests, unfortunately, did take precedence over the eminent threat that was the French. And it it again, many factors can be can be attributed to that.

The first of which, the cultural superiority of the Muslims, for example, because the Muslims at this point in time, they were the the the most superior culture on the planet, I believe. They had reached a level of, what could you say, cultural supremacy over all the the the other cultures. They had translated the sciences from every other region. They had explained them. They had added their own ideas to them.

Maybe political fragmentation was there, but cultural homogeneity was rampant throughout the Muslim world, meaning that you you could have easily lived in any place in the Muslim world and didn't feel that there was any significant change. Aside from that, this place was ruled by Fulan, and this place was ruled by another person, and that was it. But culturally speaking, it was the same all over aside from the, of course, the environment differences or the geography differences or the norms of this place or that place. So this was one aspect, this cultural maturity or culture's cultural superiority. The other aspect was the narrow interests, like I said, the two presidents.

So these these rivalries between the Muslim rulers in some places made them think that those invaders were temporary in nature, meaning that they were a metric to be dealt with easily, swiftly, and it didn't take any precedence as opposed to the danger posed by our own rivals who were more permanent in their situation and more permanent in the in the way that we have to deal with. So, yeah, unfortunately, they they underestimated the threat, and they just yeah. It was a blunder on their side.

Yeah. And if I can just add, you know, like, when we look back at it, we view it as kind of a religious war. Right? But they did not consider it, as you just said now, the they thought it was just, you know, some attack from some people. Like, they didn't see the holistic picture of it.

Right? It was just, you know, one part, one city, and they didn't see the whole picture, I feel. Right?

Yeah. Absolutely. They they failed to to to put it into perspective, so to speak. And, yeah, no one no one's perfect. No one's perfect.

And I think we were talking about this earlier in the group that Allah it could have been that Allah had decreed that the ummah, although we had achieved this sort of cultural superiority, but there were many aspects that the had needed to reawaken, like, their their sense of of of of of, I think, the the sense of of cultural superiority had sedated the oomans somewhat. So Allah decreed that they have to be put under under strain and pressure to revive some of the aspects of the imam and the faith and aspects of taqwa. And, like, our said that we as an ummah, we we do well under pressure. We strive under pressure. So puts some some puts some of us or or all of us to the test, and we we we then do our best.

The is is is able to to to pass the through the current test as they did through the last test one thousand years ago. So now we're going to to to trace the steps of this Vedongi army. Now they have reached, as we have mentioned, they have reached the north of. They were at the outskirts of Antioch as whether they've aptly said. And so right now, the people of Antioch, as we have said, they they were under the rule of named.

And we I think it's it's worth to to explain here at this point what dynamic topic is and what it meant in the context of the time period. Okay. So as as if you if if any of our listeners had listened to the previous episode, we had explained that the the the most the strongest Muslim dynasty that had come in the Muslim lands since the time of Abbasids was a dynasty called the Seljuk Empire, an an empire that originated in Central Asia. Their capital was Isfahan, and they were able to extend their borders from the peripheries of China in the East all the way to Milad Hashem and Anatolia in the West. They tried to take Egypt, but they couldn't because Egypt had a Fatehman dynasty that was ruling it at the time.

And so in in in essence, they were able to strengthen somewhat even if symbolically the Abbasid Khalafa in Baghdad, and they were able to to face some imminent threats like the the the eastern Romans in Anatolia and some of

the

Shia dynasties ruling in in the Muslim part of world. So this dynasty, the Sardik dynasty, didn't stay intact for long. So the the the dynasty was first first called the great subjects, which ruled the entire land mass mass of land that that I I had mentioned right now. But after the third monarch after the third monarch, the Sultan Maliksha, this dynasty somewhat disintegrated in in the different regions. So we heard about the we started hearing about the subjects of Asia, the subjects of Iraq, the subjects of the subjects of Anatolia, the German subjects, and so on.

And so this disintegration was a result of many factors, the most important of which was that you couldn't they couldn't sustain this this rapid expansion forever, and centrality was something difficult to maintain in this day and age. So you have to remember this was a thousand years ago. So centrality and central state power was something that was not was, again, was not achievable for a long period of time and that they would age. There was no technological means back then to to maintain this centrality. And the second part is that the house itself was there were many factions within the house, and this in in the end, we have to remember that this was a militaristic dynasty somewhere.

And they established something very important that we have to take note of that would shape this the the the the Muslim world, at least in The Middle East for the for the next maybe half a millennium, for the next five hundred years, which is that they had established something called the warrior king model. So before, the Muslim rulers didn't necessarily have to lead armies on the battlefield. Some would, some wouldn't. It was okay either way, but it would it would it would perfectly be it would be perfectly well for the caliphate, for example, to lead the army themselves or to dispatch someone, some of their a general of theirs to lead the army on the battlefield to either, you know, face a revolution and internal revolution or to make some incursions into the enemy land or enemy territory. But with with the coming of the of the Seljuks, the Turkish Seljuks, this model was no longer sufficient.

The the the the the king, the Sultan, would have to lead the army on every single campaign because this was a a display of strength on their side, and it the the the times necessary to that kind of thing. So we would always see in later in later dynasties, either the Ayyubids, the Mandukets, the Zengids, that the warrior king model was a firm a firm aspect of the institution itself. The second thing is that because of this nature

of

the dynasty, it's it's it's it's it's being militant or militaristic to be more accurate, many of those emirs and many of those sultans would die on the battlefield, and this meant that many of the children those monarchs or children of their of those emirs would be orphaned at an early age. And so in order to mitigate this crisis, so to speak, those sultans and emirs would assign some tutors for their children who would take care of those children and face them and qualify them to lead the state on afterwards when they are yeah. To hold the state affairs and have them lead the state afterwards when they would come of age. And those tutors would be called. Okay?

Of course, because powers is is very what would you call seductive, those would usually marry those children's mothers, and they would then take power for themselves, and then they would bequeath those states or those titles or whatever they have acquired to their own children, their own blood children from their from their own prodigy. Yeah. And so those would frame also would be some of the the the main traits of the of the era, the. So this was a an era in the in the Muslim Middle East. So when we, of course, talk about for the, for example, the Sankets in in the the writers of the time would refer to them as the of the And, of course, the same could be said about the, maybe somewhat less, but it it it's perfectly plausible to call them that as well.

So this is the the the the the origins of the word utabic and the origins of the title itself. And so whoever was holding a city in Ladishem was an utabic. It could be the city of Antioch, which is our main focus for today. So it was under Anutabek named Yalisian who had served the Seljuk house for many, many, many years. But eventually, he took powers took the reigns of power into his own hands, and he held up the city of Antioch.

The second thing is that Antioch had been had had changed it had changed rulers for much time for, yeah, for for many times in a very short period of time. So they had been in Muslim hands first, then they had been it had been conquered by the Eastern Romans, and then it had been taken back by the Seljuks in October, and then it was now under invasion from the Franks back in October, which meant that this change of of rulers meant that the city was itself unstable. However, the city had very, very, very strong walls. It had around 360 towers to boost. It had a strong garrison.

It was not the largest garrison there was, but I think six to 7,000 soldiers meant that it was a very strong garrison. And if you add that to the walls, then you had nothing to be afraid of, and Yenoscan knew that very well. Also, it's worth mentioning that this city boosted around 200,000 a population of about 200,000 people back in the heyday of its of its cultural thriving in in the in the Roman the the unified Roman empire. But now it merely boasted about 40,000 people, which meant that there was a lot of space within the cities itself. This meant that there was space for other agriculture within the city walls.

They didn't have to leave the city to to plant their food. So this all added to the advantage of having the ability to withstand a siege or a prolonged siege for a long period of time. So Yad Vecen was, in fact, in a very, very strong position. There was was you know, there was there was there were many indications that the siege and the unfortunate eventual loss of Antioch could not have taken place. Allah decreed that this had happened.

And so when Yalishian knew from his eyes or sorry, from his fights that the French army was underway, He began immediately to send delegations to the different rulers of to, like, seek their assistance sorry, to seek their assistance in helping him withstand those this Frankish army. And I can't compete, but I would like to hear if our beloved speakers have anything to add about Antioch before I continue about the situation in Ledshan at the time.

Yes. And then this is some are we getting into the the siege of of Antioch, or are you just made context of of Antioch? As we as we talk about the siege from the the the film, just the Frankish siege, one of the things that really stood out to me was I'm probably gonna butcher the the pronunciation. Know it's a Turkish name. I believe.

I know in Arabic text it's so it gets confusing for me. But any Turkish listeners, forgive me. The what I found very interesting was how he was thinking ahead of like, okay, as you mentioned, it's it seems to be an impregnable city. About 12,000 meters, I think, becomes like two farsakh is how long the walls were, which is say one one point two kilometers. That's I don't I don't know for my American any American listeners or British listeners.

Let's do some really quick calculation. About point eight of a mile, I think. So it's very, very long. But obviously, if there's any internal disrepute or any discord within the ranks, anybody that's manning the turrets or the wall has let the enemies in. So one of the things he did, which I found very interesting, was he sent the Christian residents out on some tests.

Because I think by this point in time, there was some whispers and some word of, okay. This is Frenzy army is march eventually to to Palestine. That was our stated goal, at least, from some of the spies and some of the this is what what had been told to Evangelize Arsalan back back in oh, so I'm forgetting the name of the city. But by this point in time, that was kind of known. Right?

So their understanding was that, okay, maybe the Christians will be on the side of the fringe. So just in case, sent them out to to do a task and then he before they came back, he didn't let them back into the city and told them that, look, Antioch is yours, but you're not allowed back in because you I need to you need to leave it to me until I figured out how to deal with the fringe. I just found it very telling because they asked him like, who's gonna protect our women and children? And he said, I will. Like, I'll take care of them for you.

No harm will befall them. And I just found that to be the kind of nobility that even despite something in wartime, which is gonna be such a hard decision to make, but it demonstrates his nobility and it's the kind of nobility that even before this and after this is entirely foreign to the Filanj. This is something we don't see at all, this kind of nobility from from the so I just wanted to point that out as something very interesting. There's a bit of foreshadowing there too. And the reason he did this was to avoid any internal issues and a bit of foreshadowing eventually the downfall of Antioch does come because some treacherous treason.

Absolutely. Yes, Tanya. This is a very interesting point to make. Thank you so much for bringing it up. So we have to put into context that citizenship was not an existent what would be called was not an existing existing concept back then.

And so it was only natural for the Christian residents of the of the city of Antioch to be of to to to work to come under the suspicion suspicious eyes of Eurasian because at the end, they identified identified themselves as Christians who their whose ultimate loyalty belonged to the Eastern Roman emperor and that they were they were, like what would you call the the I think it's the the people in the church. It has a certain terminology that I'm not sure of. So they were, like, the the the people of the church of of of the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Eastern Orthodox Christian Church. And so here's what brother Hodaifa is is is pointing out, which is that he wanted to to mention how the Muslim leaders would treat their Christian citizens, so to speak, in in in in in contrast with the way the Christian leaders would treat their Muslim citizens throughout the the the world. There there's a huge difference.

So they did come under the suspicions of Genesean, but he he did the least amount of damage to them and to their families. So he just told them that I I need you to be outside the walls, the the French war won't hurt you because, so to speak, they are coming to rescue the Christians, so they didn't need to to to to fear them. And if you're afraid for your children and women, then there's no there's no worry, and you don't have to worry about them. I will take care of them. And he did yeah.

I mean, he did the he he he did good on his promise, and he didn't, you know, do any harm to them. So this is very important for our listeners and readers to understand the difference in context between and the difference in treatment between our Muslim leaders and the Christian Muslim leaders. Brother Karim, how do you handle this?

Yeah. This part is like I would be a bit cautious, you know, because, like, I you know, of course, hindsight, you know, but in reality, you know, these Christians, quote unquote, like, I think that the leaders should have tried to understand the situation a bit more because, you know, like, for example, in our context today, I feel it's very similar to, for example, ascribing to Jews what the Israelis are doing. Right? And I feel that there needs to be some distinction because, like, for example, the Orthodox Christians that were living in those areas were very different from the Christians that came from the Roman Empire, right, from the French. So, like, you know, to be just and to be to stand with the truth, I think there needs to be a bit more curation or a bit more analysis into the reality of things.

Right? Because, like, lumping them together, I do not think it's really as just as it could be. Right? And I'm not saying I would have acted differently in that situations. Again, you know, of course, there were aspects that were taken into consideration that I do not know about, and he knew the people, of course, you know, so very easy for me to talk about it now without being there.

But I just feel that even us now with the situation we are currently facing, we should be able to make a distinction between, you know, unjust people of the book and just people of the book. And I think in that situation, there was a bit, like, assumption that their loyalty will be immediately with the oppressors, whereas I do believe that they the Christians themselves that were living there felt loyalty more to the Muslims that were, you know, taking care of them and how they behaved with them. Like, even the Christians, when those French came, they were, like, bewildered. Like, what are those barbarians? You know?

Those are not Christians. Alright? And as we will see later on in, you know, Jerusalem and so on. But, yeah, that's just my point. Like, to be fair and to take something from it for today's time, I do believe that maybe it's not with Christians nowadays, but more about, you know, the Jews and how we view them.

And I do believe that to be just and, you know, to because we will be held accountable for our actions and, you know so I do believe that we need to make a distinction between parties that just claim some, you know, alliance and parties that are being, you know, fair and yeah. So that's just something that I tried to that I was you know, that came to my mind when I was reading it because I felt like they have been thrown from one side and from the other as well. Right? Like, I don't know if someone had that similar feeling a bit. I don't know.

But just from me reading it, this is my somewhat reflection on this part.

Absolutely, brother Karim. Yeah. And you you made a very interesting point. But, you have to remember our stats very earliest comments in this space, which is that those rulers were not. They were they were not angels.

Right? So they had to act within the real politics context of the time, which meant that they had to take the precautions. They had to make some what we might call grotesque actions. Although, to be very fairly to be very, very, very honest, this was the least grotesque action that they could take against some, not all of their Christian citizens at the time. I mean, I have to remind our audience that the Muslims sorry, the Christian families within the walls and the Christian men outside of the walls, they were not harmed.

The only people who harmed them and killed them were the but the Muslims. They didn't do anything to harm any of the Christians outside the walls or inside walls. So lumping them together wouldn't be the most accurate word, but, yeah, he he putting them under his suspicious eyes, of course, it could have been yeah. Mean, some some other actions could have been taken. Although I to be honest, Allah, what else could have been yeah.

What else what what other actions could have been taken by us, Yan? And you have to know you have to understand that this was a very this was a desperate man at a very desperate time. So, yeah, I mean, I believe that he handled it pretty well given the context and given the circumstances. But, of course, right now, we have first of all, we have the benefit of hindsight. And second, we also understand that sometimes lumping together your own residence with the external enemy could actually backfire and harm the cause that you are defending instead of, you know, achieving the greater good.

So thank you so much, brother Kring, for your for your thoughts on this. Really appreciate it. Brother Hatayfah, I'm sorry. I know your hand was raised for a long time. Sorry.

No. No. That's no worries. Just to sort of dovetail off of what you both were saying and to remind you of that word that you were looking for the the term, I believe it's or adebs of the Nazareth and Nazareth Christians. Because just to contextualize as as you were mentioning, as well as brother Kareem was saying, it's a well received point.

But I I also sort of fall a little bit more in the camp of thinking this was actually him acting out of a degree of nobility because the Romans, the Byzantine Empire, this I believe seated in constant Constantinople at this time would Constantinople at the time as well. And and this we're talking about these events, contemporaneous to these events. They originally had Antioch, and the Seljuks took it over. And they had always said that, look. Well, this is our city.

We're gonna get it back, which is why Yahushiyan Yahushiyan, he had mentioned to the Christians, this is your city, but you have to let me take care of it. So he actually affirmed that, look. This is your city. I have no intention of barring you from it, but I need this sort of security because he thought maybe their loyalties would lie towards the Byzantine forces. Now they didn't actually they weren't actually necessarily Byzantine forces, but he had no real way of knowing that.

That would have been the most astute conclusion for him to draw based off of induction and deduction. That's what this was. But what I I wanna add just to that point of noting out the nobility of him just being like, we'll take care of your families, and he did was also out later on, and then we'll ask one brother Omar just a little bit later on in sort of what happened at the seat of Antioch. Yahya Yahya Yahya had spies that would infiltrate the Phrenji camps and report back to him about what was happening. Most of those people were those same local Christians that he had said you cannot come back into the city and they did this to curry favor with him, which is just testament to his nobility and the fact that they they knew that he would be receptive to it.

They wouldn't have done that if they had felt like, okay, now I can turn against this man by like saying this thing, sort of playing double agent, you know, going back to him, but actually reporting back to the about certain things. They still wanted to be with him in Antioch. So I think they even well understood why he did the things that he did and appreciated his caretaking of their families, their women, children. So just something to point out there about maybe sometimes we sort of anachronistically think of how things could have been done. But, you know, like, every place has a has a way to speak.

There's a way to carry yourself in every time, and so every time dictates the affairs. And and those times are just, I think, a little bit different from how we perceive things in this day and age.

Yeah. Absolutely, brother. And well, Yoni, I'm just I think we we can, like, add this final point before that we move on, unless any of our other speakers would like to add, is that I personally don't know if there's any way we can understand the true motives behind those, Orthodox Christians, spying on the phrenergic camp. So, again, we have to be realistic. So, we and Middleton Nation encourage the the the adoption of radical realism in our takes.

So, yes, it could be the case that they wanted to curry favor with Yarisian and to tell him, look, we're on your camp in your camp. And it could be simply that they were so afraid for their you know, so concerned for the safety of their families, their wives, and children that they would do anything just to make sure that those didn't enter the city, didn't massacre those people, or that the Yarisian didn't threaten them in any form. So they would they would be willing to do that kind of thing. So because you have to understand that they were shocked by the Alessian did what he did. Maybe possibly, we as Muslims have to maintain that out of nobility, perhaps.

However, they don't really know that. They don't they don't have any way to to to to be sure that this was the case. So to them, it was just a shocking event that they were now outside of the walls. Their families were inside of the walls, and they were under the protection and the control of the Alician. So we, of course, as Muslims, know that Alician or any Muslim ruler would never harm them, would never put them, you know, any any would never do them any harm, but they didn't necessarily have that confidence.

The only confidence that they had is that they had been with Muslims for a very lengthy period of time. So, yeah, that could be reassuring, but this is a war. We're in a we're in a time war. So many of the long established concepts really do get shaken in times like these. So the true motives, to me at least, are still, you know, under the hood because no one really knows what was going through those men's minds.

Okay. So I think we can move on. So yeah. So the as brother mentioned, the had come with a with a scheme by which he would was able to keep the Christian men the Christian residents of Antioch out of the city because he had suspicions about their true loyalties. And so now the were there.

They they siege to the city, and they they were the the siege of Antioch began. Earlier, had sent his son, to the different rulers of in order to ask them for immediate immediate military aid in order to face the the Fekanji army. Now the context in Bereldesham was a bit, you know, sad. So as mentioned, there was a house in Bereldesham, an overall arching house in Bereldesham called the of Bereldesham. But the most the strongest rulers of Bledshem were two brothers.

They were the sons of Tutish ibn al Barslan. They were the grandchildren of al Barslan, the second bornarch of the great seldugs. So al Barslan had two sons, Maliksha, the last great seldug, and another son called Tutush, his brother. And those two emirs of Aleppo and Damascus were the sons of Tutush, so they were the grandsons of al Barslan, as I mentioned. So the greater the elder son was called the one, and he was the ruler of Aleppo.

And the younger son was called Bukap, and he was the ruler of Damascus. Now one would think that those two brothers would have at least amicable relationships, but, unfortunately, upon ascending the throne of Aleppo, had four brothers sorry, had

three

brothers, one of which was Dukak. And upon ascending the throne of Aleppo, Rinon appeared that those brothers might challenge him for the throne, so he ordered the three of them to be executed. Two were executed indeed, and the third, which is Dukak, was able to escape with for to to escape with his life, and he headed to Damascus where he was welcomed by his skarism and installed as the ruler of Damascus as as being an emir of the of the. But, unfortunately, the the the the act by which Rugwan had started his reign in Aleppo had alienated Lukak from him to the to the to the most, yeah, to the most conflicting type of relationship. They they couldn't stand each other's guts, those two, because Ferdinand feared that always Bucock was looking for the throne of Aleppo, and Ferdinand always in was always fearing that Ferdinand would simply kill him and seize the masks.

And, of course, as our listeners might now have reached, the conclusion was that this deeply weakened the the front in the to the point that when to first to the in Damascus because he had very serious concerns about the one's intentions in Aleppo. He feared that the one would want to extend his own power over Antioch, and so he feared he he reckoned that asking Dukak first offered them for Damascus first to come to his aid since Damascus was further, this would lessen the, what would you call, the the aspiring the aspirations of the talk's takeover Antioch. Although he had been the father-in-law the father-in-law of the one, this didn't mitigate any of his fears. So he first sent to to the cop in Damascus, and the cop was very afraid of leaving his city of Damascus undefended and taking his army out to to aid Antioch. He feared that Vedon would use this advantage or use this opportunity to take Damascus in his absence.

So he would go out in aid of Antioch, but at the first sign of problem, when he first met the the the Ferengi army that was, you know, executing some forays to to get food or or and and to get food and supplies. Although the one had sorry. Although Dukak, the ruler of Damascus, had the numerical superiority and the elements of surprise on his side, he was he made a blunder, and he couldn't, you know, capitalize on those elements at all. And the he lost some of his men, and that was more than enough for him to retreat back to the masks. So that meant that he was eventually essentially leaving the.

He didn't he didn't come to his aid, which, of course, boosted the morale of the, but at the same time, it it drove despair into the people of Antioch. So upon failing to receive the aid, Now had to make the humiliating request for aid from his son, Dol, which is the one, the emir of Aleppo. And so, of course, kept son in his court, and he kept asking him why didn't they ask for the the and that kind of thing because he knew. And, of course, had to, you know, grind his teeth and take all of the insults, all the all of the insults and just, you know, and keep keep keep up with the with with with one's sarcasm because they needed his assistance. And on the other side, one had to had to provide assistance because the were were now starting to make incursions into his own lands because Aleppo was less than three days march from Antioch, so they were very near to his own possessions.

And so he understood that not helping Galician was essentially going to hurt him as well. So he provided he he he got his army out in order to provide assistance to Galician. But, again, he made some strategic errors and some military military strategy errors, which also caused the to to win the battle before it even started with the. So, again, despite the numerical superiority and despite having the advantage of the terrain, both and failed to counter the the. And, again, this boosted the morale of the of the siegers and drove to spare drove to spare to the hearts of the besieged.

And so Yarisian was now left all alone. He he he realized that none of the rulers of Viladishan because those were the two strongest rulers of the of. The only remaining ruler in in the Muslim lands that was able to help him was the ruler of Al Mosul, which was the the pearl of of of of the region of Iraq. It had the resources. It had the the economic resources and the economic thriving that would enable its from assisting him.