Shortly after this bloody conquest, the crusader lords wrote a letter to the pope, chronicling their journey and culminating in a description of how the Muslims suffered at their hands. “If you desire to know what was done with the enemy who were found there, know that in Solomon’s Porch and in his temple our men rode in the blood of the Saracens up to the knees of their horses.”3 These are the records of history, and the nine hundred intervening years do nothing to blur the vivid images of the First Crusade in the collective memory of modern Muslims.
