ABSTRACT
In 1291 al-Ashraf, Qalawūn’s son, completed his father’s work (Qalawūn died while preparations for the campaign against Acre were in progress) and the work of all his predecessors in the struggle against the Christian invader. The bloody conquest of Acre after a strenuous resistance is described here by Abu l-Fidā’, who took part in it as one of the Sultan’s vassals. His account is consistent with that of the ‘Templar of Tyre’, the best known Western source for the episode that marked the end of Christian rule in the Holy Land. The treacherous slaughter of the heroic defenders after the surrender is shown by a later Egyptian chronicler, Abu l-Mahasin, to reflect a similar massacre of Muslim prisoners under treaty committed a hundred years before by Richard Coeur de Lion, also at Acre. This harsh application of the old law closes the last act of the drama of the Crusaders.
