Crusade chroniclers claimed Saracens converted en masse after dream visions

Evidence

In Acre, before going to Egypt, Jacques describes how he often gazed tearfully westward across the sea, waiting with great desire for the advent of the “pilgrims”; “if we had four thousand armed men,” he says, “with God’s grace we would not find anyone able to resist us.” The Saracens are divided, he says, politically and religiously: some drink wine and eat pork in disobedience to Muhammad’s law. In Acre, Saracens (many of them slaves of Christians) daily come to him for baptism, Jacques affirms; Christ and the Virgin appear to them in dreams ordering them to do so and warning them of the imminent victory of the Christians. When the crusaders were besieging Damietta, Jacques says, Saracens crossed the Nile to receive baptism; more would have done so if not for the dangers of crossing the river. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1025