The Zengid Mosque

2012a tale of the

East from ‘Bayko Baron’

• Built by the Seljuq Atabeg Zengi, the

mosque at Al Jibba is one of the newest in Islam, but already

one of the wealthiest

• The mosque draws praise but also envy – even now a raiding force of Templar, Hospitallers and lay-knights out of Antioch approaches

• Forewarned Nureddin, the new atabeg of Aleppo has sent his young protégé Yusuf Ayubb to defend the mosque and its oasis

• As the raiders approach they find themselves engulfed in a horde of circling horse-archers. The Templar commander, Arnauld de Graspillon forms his infantry in a human wall around his

precious horses – they must be saved for the decisive charge.

• Unused to eastern tactics, and holy orders discipline, the Antiochene knights, many of them newly arrived from the west refuse to hide behind their social inferiors. They break ranks and charge. His hand forced De Graspillon has no choice but to send his own knights after them. In the face of the thundering knights the horse archers disperse and even the Tarwashi lancers beyond fall back in retreat.

• Deserted by the cavalry the christian infantry are shortly surrounded and charged down by the Seljuq ghulams.

• Meanwhile, their charge exhausted and their only tactic spent the crusader knights are engulfed once more by the hated horse archers

• The Holy Order knights fight to the death as their monastic vows

require – De Graspillon himself is unhorsed in the last assault and

captured alive – forbidden suicide by

his religion and ransom by his Templar sttus he will languish in a Seljuq prison for another 16 years before being

traded for a saracen princess.

• Meanwhile the ghulams hail the

victorius Yusuf Ayubb as ‘The Righteous

Sword’• Or as the West will

come to know him - • SALADIN!

• A last glimpse of The Institute