Part 56

The Franks who were present laughed, but the king said to them, "Do not laugh, for by God he is not speaking without knowledge." The king felt very distressed, and before long news reached them that Edessa had fallen to the Muslims, and this bad news made them forget that earlier good news, because of how important Edessa was to the Christians.357 A martyr seen in a dream It is narrated that a righteous man said, "I saw a martyr in a dream after he was killed, in the best shape. I asked him, 'What did Allah do to you?' He said, 'He forgave me.' I said, 'In return for what?' He replied, 'In return for the conquest of Edessa.'"358 Conspiracy by the inhabitants of Edessa The Armenian inhabitants of Edessa soon — in the following year — planned a conspiracy in which their aim was to attack the Muslims and return the city to Crusader control after summoning Joscelin, but Zangi quickly uncovered this dangerous plot and managed to capture and execute the plotters. After that he banished a number of Armenians so that they would not have the opportunity to try again to stab the Muslims in the back and hand over their most important position to the Crusaders for an easy gain.359 Consequences of the conquest of Edessa In conquering Edessa, Imad ad-Deen Zangi achieved his most important achievement against the Crusaders during his rule. This victory had important consequences for the Muslim and Christian worlds, among the most important of which were: (a) The Muslims became certain that the Jihad movement had reached the stage of maturity in political and military terms, and this is not to downplay the achievements made by leaders before Zangi, especially Mawdood. It was the first Crusader state that fell into their hands, so it was a beginning: today Edessa, tomorrow the fall of the other alien Crusader states. This is indeed what came to pass. From this point onwards there was no turning back, rather they could move on with confidence and pride in their achievements. (b) History confirms that entities such as this illegitimate Crusader presence could not last on Muslim soil, because the inhabitants of the region who had one religious identity would not accept this alien military and political situation. Thus harmony returned to northern Iraq, and Edessa no longer played the role of division or of a Crusader presence that acted as a buffer zone in preventing contact between the Seljuks of Asia Minor (Seljuks of Rum), the Seljuks of Iraq and those in Persia.360 (c) Pressure was put on the Crusader regions which stretched in a long line from Antioch in the north to Eilat (Rashrash) in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east to the Greater Syrian coast — with the exception of Ascalon ('Asqalan). Tyre, which included the County of Tripoli and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, fell to the Muslims in 1124 CE/518 AH. Edessa, which was like the tip of the Crusader spear, fell forever, leaving the shaft of the spear-the other Crusader states. Hence the military pressure on them increased, in the form of the Muslim forces who were controlling the Syrian interior parallel to the coastline and coastal plain. In geographical terms, it is as if the battle was now between the coast and the interior; the former now relying basically on exterior European support, whilst the latter relied on plentiful local resources which became more abundant with the emergence of a Muslim leadership striving for unity among Muslims. (d) In this manner the fall of Edessa led to the revival of a strategic, defensive alliance between the Crusader presence in the east and the motherland in Western Europe. The west could not allow its political and historical ventures in the east to fail one by one; it had to intervene in order to set things straight once more and put an end to the activities of the Emirate of Mosul. Hence it launched another Crusade (1147-1149 CE/542-544 CE), known as the Second Crusade. This was one of the direct consequences of the fall of Edessa, which clearly explains how the leaders of the Islamic Jihad fought off international forces. They were not simply local forces with limited influence and impact; they were part of a continental or global conflict, a fact which gives these leaders a prominent status in the history of the Muslims during the Crusades. (e) One of the many consequences of this achievement was the great rise in status of Imad ad-Deen Zangi. After being merely a local ruler with limited influence, his name soon started to be mentioned in the annals of the Latin and Syriac peoples, to reflect the fact that he had a major impact on the course of events in the Latin East, in an unprecedented manner.