The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

The Sultanate of Rūm stretched across much of Asia Minor and was first to receive word of the Franj (Franks/French) arrival in the east in July 1096, according to the Muslim historian, Ibn al-Qalānisi. The Turks had recently taken this realm from the Byzantine Empire under the Sultan Kilij Arslan’s father. Nicaea became the capital of this new Turkish kingdom, which still teemed with churches and had a large Greek population that wished to return to Byzantine hands. Turkish mercenaries serving in the Byzantine army informed Kilij Arslan about the Europeans’ arrival. They comprised a band of women, children, and the impoverished elderly, led by Peter the Hermit, and wore crosses sewn onto their garments.

The Byzantines allowed them to cross the Bosphorus and “Wherever they passed, they were heard to proclaim that they had come to exterminate the Muslims, although they were also seen to plunder many a Greek church on the way” (5). Informers reported that there were thousands whom the Byzantine emperor established at a camp near Nicaea.

This ragtag band of peasants eventually left the camp and headed toward Nicaea, seizing surpluses from the Christian villages along the way and slaughtering those who resisted.