Now in history, Europe’s heavily armored knights and Islam’s light infantry had their first, big pitched battle, at Dorylaeum, in Asia Minor.
It had been two years since the First Crusade was called, and Europe’s Christians, led by the Franks and Normans, were deep in Asia Minor. By releasing Nicaea, where the Nicaean Creed, which most Christians still profess today, was written in 325, they had already won their first victory.  ,
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The much more numerous Muslims, led by the Turks, were outraged at having lost the ancient city. Thus, once the Crusaders set off on the long road to Jerusalem, their foes laid in ambush for them.
They had a chance to regroup at Dorylaeum, where the Crusader army divided its forces, to forage there. One of the smaller contingents witnessed about thirty thousand mounted Muslims flitting toward them on July 1, 1097, while a contemporary writes that” shrieking heaven knows what barbarisms in loud voices” are being said.  ,
Along with these hysterical cries of” Allahu Akbar”, which” seemed to rise to the skies”, was the” clang of armor, the neighing of horses, the trumpet’s blast”, and” the awe- inspiring roll of the drum” —all of which” struck terror to the hearts of the]Christian ] legions, unaccustomed as they were to such a scene”. ( Little did this chronicler or the Crusaders know that” striking terror in the hearts of nonbelievers” was a Koranic mandate, e. g., 8: 12.)
Intent on annihilating the insolent infidels, the Turks let loose a torrent of arrows, killing hundreds. On getting closer, they targeted the weak and even” slaughtered mothers with their children”. Bohemond, the Norman warlord heading this besieged contingent, instantly dispatched a quick rider to inform the other leaders that “what they want is now here: come quickly”. The first to come to the rescue was Duke Godfrey of Bouillon and his men, who “wondered where in the world such an infinite number of people had come from.” Turks, Arabs, and Saracens stood out among the others”.
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The Duke and other leaders told their men to” throw swords” and” to fear only God,” not” this pile of husks,” and the Christians then launched an enraged attack on the foe with swords. Even as they “pressed and pursued the Turkish battle line” —and despite the” carnage” created among the Muslims —”like the regenerating heads of the Hydra, where a few fell, countless others took their place”. Christian heavy cavalry charges eventually “broke up the battle lines of the infidels and flee with horrifying slaughter” after extensive bloodshed on both sides.
It was a costly Crusader victory. In the gory aftermath, four thousand Christians were massacred. As for the Muslims, about three thousand were killed, “including Arabs, Turks, ]and ] Persians”, before they retreated.
Dorylaeum was the first pitched battle between the Crusaders and Turks, and it was also where the Europeans first actually saw the Turkic way of war. Unlike their heavily armored Christian counterparts, the Turkish army consisted primarily of light cavalry. It would veer off into the distance and fly volley after volley of arrows ( regularly described in both Muslim and Christian sources as blotting out the sun ) that would kill or incapacitate their enemy ( sources claim of Crusaders looking like “hedgehogs” or found dead with forty arrows protruding ). This was what the Crusaders sought and excelled at. Finally, when the time was right, the Turkish horsemen would go for the kill, that is, when their enemy’s army was disunited.
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The chronicler, William of Tyre ( b. 1130 ), offers a succinct summary of the Turkish way of war which dominated most encounters between Turks and Europeans, including before and after the First Crusade ( e. g., Manzikert, 1071, Hattin, 1187 ): The Turks, he writes, would “let fly a shower of arrows which filled the air like hail…. When a second shower, which was no less dense, arrived, it had just barely stopped. No one who had fortunately escaped from the previous attack emerged unscathed from this. Then, whenever the Crusaders charged, the Turks “purposely opened their ranks to avoid the clash, and the Christians, finding no one to oppose them, had to fall back deceived. The Turks then once more closed their lines and unleashed arrow showers like rain.
After Dorylaeum, the Crusaders marched largely unopposed for three months. Rather than confront them again, the Turks turned to more ignoble tactics. They told other Muslim-controlled fortresses on the Crusaders ‘ route,” We have defeated the Christian armies and deprived them of all desire for combat” and that they would “welcome sincerely all those who go to such lengths to protect you.” Once inside, they” stripped the churches”, plundered whatever was valuable, and “abducted the sons of Christians as slaves, and consigned to the flames other things that were less useful, constantly in fear of our]men ] coming up behind them”.
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In the months and years to come, all of this treachery would lead to even greater battles and animosity.
This article was abstracted from Raymond Ibrahim’s book,” Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam“.
