In fact, Jerusalem was taken from the north on the morning of July 15, 1099. The population was put to the sword by the Franks, who pillaged the area for a week. A band of Muslims barricaded themselves into the Oratory of Savid [Tower of David] and fought on for several days. They were granted their lives in return for surrendering. The Franks honored their word, and the group left by night for Ascalon [a city on the coast]. In the Masjid al-Aqsa [the Temple of Solomon] the Franks slaughtered more than 70,000 people, among them a large number of Imams and Muslim scholars, devout and ascetic men who had left their homelands to live lives of pious seclusion in the Holy Place.


Background information: This account of the fall of Jerusalem in 1099 was written in 1231 by a Muslim historian who traveled with Saladin's army.


The author of this account is a

✔ Muslim defender

.


As a result, his account is likely to be

✔ more sympathetic