Jerusalem was taken from the north on the morning of July 15, 1099. The population was put to the sword by the Franks, who attacked the area for a week. A band of Muslims barricaded themselves into the Tower of David and fought on for several days. They were granted their lives in return for surrendering. The Franks honored their word, and the group left by night for Ascalon. In the Al-Aqsa Mosque the Franks slaughtered more than 70,000 people, among them a large number of holy men and Muslim scholars, faithful men who had left their homelands to live lives of religious seclusion in the Holy Place. The Franks stripped the Dome of the Rock of more than forty silver candle holders and more than twenty gold ones, and a great deal more booty. Refugees reached Baghdad and told the ruler’s ministers a story that wrung their hearts and brought tears to their eyes. They begged for help, weeping so that their hearers wept with them as they described the sufferings of the Muslims in that Holy City: the men killed, the women and children taken prisoner, the homes violently robbed.