Note 177 — BOOK IV.

The Oriental authors give no details of the siege of Jerusalem. The manuscript history of Jerusalem and Hebron, which is in the Imperial Library, and of which M. Jourdain has been kind enough to translate several fragments for me, contains nothing but vague notices. The author contents himself with saying that the siege lasted more than forty days, and that the Christians killed a great number of Mussulmans. We may here make a general remark: when the Mussulmans experience reverses, the Arabian authors are very sparing of details, and satisfy themselves with telling things in a vague manner, adding, “So God has willed it, may God curse the Christians.” Aboul-Feda gives very few more details than the rest. He says that the massacre of the Mussulmans lasted during seven consecutive days, and that seventy thousand persons were killed in the mosque of Omar, which is evidently an exaggeration.