Fighting at Damascus
Ibn Kathir reports that Damascus’s inhabitants fought fiercely against the Franks during their attack in Rabīʿ I AH 543.
What this does and does not establish
Arabic Wikisource revision 77315; AH 543 heading at the retained file, line 4 and 10, Damascus and month identified at line 16. The excerpt’s subjects are the city's inhabitants and the Franks. Nearby lines 18–20 describe relief forces, withdrawal, and an agreement involving Banyas. The parallel Cologne recensions name Damascus at the retained file, lines 3482,3499–3504 and 3520–3525, but attribute withdrawal to alleged betrayal and princely avarice; they are parallel textual witnesses, not independent chronological confirmation. No troop estimates or disputed weekday are adopted.
- Read through an AI working translation.
- Region
- Western Asia
- Theme
- Politics and institutions
- Kind of record
- Placed in a year. A source places this in one year. It is listed under that year; no day precision is invented.
How it is dated
- Date reference
- Rabīʿ I AH 543; the entry specifies its sixth day.
- How we use it
- Year-level placement is limited to the dated source entry.
The date reference is this project’s reading of the source’s date. It may give an era name, a reign or a calendar in a normalised form rather than in the source’s own words; the dating notes say what the source prints.
Dating notes from the research record
Read kathir543.wikitext:1–24, including the year heading at line 4 and dated Damascus passage at line 16. Read ah-543.txt:1–13: its Civil/tabular month-3 row at line 4 gives 20 July–18 August 1148 Julian, with the full observational uncertainty interval of 17 July–21 August 1148. That entire interval lies within AD 1148, establishing one Julian year without depending on the stated weekday. Compared cologne.txt:3475–3539, especially the parallel Damascus passages at 3482/3499–3504 and 3520–3525, for city identification and differing explanations, not their joint chronology. Original quotation begins at line 16, character 1217.
File names and line numbers in these notes, and in the limits above, refer to the project’s retained copies of the cited sources. Names such as calendar_headers are the project’s calendar look-ups, and “the investigator” is the research step that prepared the record.
Sources and quoted text
Line and character numbers under “Location” refer to the project’s retained copy of the source. For database rows, “Edition” names the batch of rows that was fetched together.
Source 1 · Supports the statement
Al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya
Ibn Kathir
Quoted text (Arabic)
فاقتتلوا معهم قتالا شديداAI working translation into English; not official or authoritative
Then they fought fiercely against them.
Source credit and reuse conditions recorded for this source: Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya, annal AH 543 https://ar.wikisource.org/w/index.php?oldid=77315 Public-domain historical original. Wikisource contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Attribute the fixed transcription and share adapted excerpts alike. Project translation.
Exact source version
93d9979353ca5f90fd487daae47800c13f4d591bf74113107090af0db9bc5deeChecks and changes
Source checked 2026-11-06. An independent AI evidence review supports this bounded, attributed wording. That review does not guarantee historical truth. How records are checked
No correction has been made to this record’s statement or limits.
Revision s1101_damascus_pilot_1148_0
Exact revision fingerprint
edd2883c7d150545546b4c3b7e43c229122fa45512ab1d67f805af2d38b8f8ad