History
Nur al-Din
Nur al-Din, also known as Nur ad-Din Zangi, was a prominent ruler of the Zengid dynasty in the 12th century. He is remembered for his efforts to unite the Muslim territories against the Crusaders and for his role in the reconquest of Edessa. Nur al-Din's reign was marked by his military prowess, religious piety, and efforts to establish a unified Islamic state.
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eBook - PDFThe Crusades
Islamic Perspectives
- Carole Hillenbrand(Author)
- 1999(Publication Date)
- Edinburgh University Press(Publisher)
As for Nur al-Din, he was deprived of the ultimate prize of Jerusalem. Without it his achievements remain less dramatic than those of Saladin; but it was through the career of Nur al-Din that the foundations of a fully-fledged jihad programme were established. Saladin would not have attained his successes had Nur al-Din not prepared the way. Confronted by the Crusaders, and by the ideological challenge which they represented, the Muslims of the twelfth century were able gradually to restore the notion of jihad from the state of som-nolence into which it had fallen and thus to permit it to assume to the full the role that the theoreticians of Islamic law had given it in their books. The real turning-point was the careers of Nur al-Din and Saladin. The one cannot be divorced from the other; they form a continuum in this respect. During their periods in power, Syria and an increasing number of the territories around it were held under strong one-man rule for nearly fifty years. This crucial half-century enabled the Muslims to enjoy a much greater sense of cohesion and unity and to regain Jerusalem from the Franks, who noticeably lacked such continuity of leadership. Clearly, Muslim military leaders and their entourage learned in this crucial period how to use a full range of propaganda tools in order to work towards Muslim reunification and Muslim corporate effort against the Franks. Jerusalem in these decades became the supreme focus of Muslim efforts and its Muslim identity was elaborated and appreciated to the full. After the conquest of Jerusalem, it is perhaps understandable that Saladin’s emotional commitment to jihad fal-tered. Ibn Zaki urges the faithful to continue to prosecute the jihad , and to take back the rest of the Holy Land: ‘Maintain the Holy War; it is the best means which you have of serving God, the most noble occupation of your lives.’ 70 But no comparable focus for the emotions generated by jihad presented itself to Saladin after Jerusalem.
eBook - ePub- P.M. Holt(Author)
- 2016(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
chapter four Nūr Al-Dīn, Saladin and the Frankish StatesThe reign of Nūr al-Dīn and the acquisition of Damascus
During his long reign from 1146 to his death in 1174, Nūr al-Dīn outlived all those who were his fellow rulers at his accession. In particular, his elder brother Ghāzī I, the atabeg of Mosul, died in November 1149, and thereby Nūr al-Dīn became the head of the Zangid clan. Ghāzī was succeeded by his son, Quṭtb al-Dīn Mawdūd, and he by his son, Ghāzī II, in 1170. The history of Mosul was almost entirely distinct in this period from that of Nūr al-Dīn's possessions.From the start Nūr al-Dīn was involved in dealings with the Frankish states on his borders. Apart from establishing his control over Edessa, and ultimately over the whole of the former county after Joscelin II's death as his prisoner in 1150, his first intervention was over a curious episode in 1148 in the county of Tripoli. Raymond II, the reigning count, was challenged by a pretender who had ensconced himself in the stronghold of 'Urayma, an important strategic site dominating the coastal route near Latakia. Raymond called on Unur of Damascus for help, and then invited the cooperation of Nūr al-Dīn. Their success was complete, and the stronghold was demolished. The incident shows the Muslim powers in an unusual light as the chosen arbitrators in a purely Frankish concern, a reflection of their enhanced status after the Second Crusade.Nūr al-Dīn's second involvement with the Franks came when he was asked by the reigning Seljuk sultan, Mas'ūd, to intervene against Raymond of Antioch, who was raiding beyond the northern borders of his principality to the east of the Amanus mountains. The expedition was disastrous. Nūr al-Dīn was taken by surprise in his camp in November 1148, and was forced to flee to Aleppo. In the following year he took his revenge. In the summer of 1149 he planned to take Afāmiya on the middle Orontes, which had been captured by Tancred in 1106, and he called on Unur to provide a supporting contingent. Unur safeguarded himself by a two-year truce with Baldwin III in Muḥarram 544/May-June 1149, and then sent the required force. It was a second Field of Blood. Raymond was defeated and killed in the battle. Afāmiya was taken in July and Andoch itself besieged. In the meantime King Baldwin III brought in a relieving army and negotiated peace with Nūr al-Dīn. Apart from Afāmiya, Nūr al-Dīn failed at this time to advance his frontier to the Orontes. The stronghold of Hārim to the north was also taken, although not yet permanently held. It was to mark the effective frontier between Aleppo on the east and the Franks on the west. Antioch meanwhile remained, at least in name, under the rule of the Princess Constance, Raymond's widow.
eBook - PDFA History of the Crusades, Volume 1
The First Hundred Years
- Marshall W. Baldwin, Kenneth Meyer Setton, Marshall W. Baldwin, Kenneth Meyer Setton(Authors)
- 2016(Publication Date)
520 A HISTORY OK THE CRUSADES I Din, plus the regiments of his district commanders and vassals. The combined forces of Aleppo and Damascus at I nab amounted, as already noted, to 6 , 0 0 0 horse; and it is probable that the regular armies under Nür-ad-Din's direct command never much exceeded this figure. When reinforced by the Artukid princes or from Mosul, or by auxiliary bodies of Turkomans or Arab tribesmen, his armies may well have reached 1 0 , 0 0 0 or even 15,000, exclusive of foot-soldiers and volunteers. In one feature Nür-ad-Din's regular forces differed from most of the Selchükid armies, namely in the enrolment of large numbers of Kurds alongside the Turkish mamlüks. The brothers Aiyüb and Shirküh were, though the most prominent, by no means the only Kurdish officers who attained high rank under him; and these in turn naturally attracted large numbers of their fellow-countrymen, both as regulars and as auxiliary troops. The local Arab seden-taries and militia, on the other hand, who had played so large a part in Syria during the preceding century, seem to have been suppressed or discouraged, no doubt as potential elements of in-subordination. They are scarcely mentioned in the annals of Nür-ad-Din's campaigns, and reappear under Saladin only as auxiliary infantry and siege troops. Shortly after the capture of Baalbek, Nur-ad-Din returned to the north to intervene in the complicated struggle between the Selchükid and Dänishmendid princes in Anatolia that followed the death of sultan Mas'üd I in 1 x 5 5 . While his successor Kilij Arslan II engaged and defeated the Dänishmendid Yaghi-Siyan of Sebastia (Sivas) at Aqserai in September, Nür-ad-Din seized the opportunity to annex Aintab, Duluk, and Marzban.
eBook - ePubThe Crusades
A Beginner's Guide
- Andrew Jotischky(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Oneworld Publications(Publisher)
In 1171, on Nur’s orders and after the death of the unfortunate al-‘Adid, the Fatimid caliphate was suppressed. Shi‘ite rule in Egypt, after two hundred years, was over and one of the aims of Nur’s jihad – the extension of Sunni orthodoxy – had been furthered significantly. But Nur proved unable to control his protégé, who had adopted the Seljuq title of sultan in Egypt. By 1174, Nur was ready to call Saladin to account for his governance in Egypt when he died following a short illness after a game of polo. The way was clear for Saladin to assume full control in Egypt, but the Kurd was not content with that. He realized that despite the widespread authority Nur had commanded throughout Syria, his dynastic hold was precarious. His heir, as-Salih, was only eleven years old; one nephew, Saif ad-Din, who controlled Mosul, began openly to flout Nur’s example of pious rulership by riotous living; his other nephew, ‘Imad ad-Din Zengi, barely clung to power in Sinjar. Saladin used the pretext of an anticipated Frankish invasion of Damascus to march a small army to Syria himself. He was doubly fortunate: the Syrian emirs who wanted to control as-Salih were divided among themselves, and in July 1174 King Amalric died, leaving an uncertain succession in Jerusalem. Saladin’s prompt action caught prospective opponents in Damascus on the back foot, and he was invited to take control of the city on behalf of as-Salih. At least one Arab chronicler later wrote that he had bought off opposition with handsome payments, and William of Tyre, a canny observer from Jerusalem, remarked that one of the things that made Saladin so dangerous was his generosity. As-Salih was whisked off to Aleppo by emirs loyal to the Zengid dynasty, and it was from Aleppo that the only challenge to what was obviously a coup d’état came. Qutb ad-Din, one of Nur’s emirs, sent the message that the swords that had given Saladin Egypt would drive him back there
- Matti Moosa(Author)
- 2008(Publication Date)
- Gorgias Press(Publisher)
He expressed his love for and allegiance to the house of Zangi, declaring that he and those who suspected his good intentions were on opposite poles. He wrote to Shams al-Din ibn al-Muqaddam, “We wish nothing for the Muslims except that which will unite them, and for the house of the atabeg (Nur al-Din Zangi) what will protect its roots and branches and drive harm away, and will procure what benefits it.” 84 The contemporary Egyptian writer Sa’id Abd al-Fattah Ashur asserts that Saladin’s march on Syria was motivated not by personal ambition or desire for gain but by his wish to unify the Muslims and end the dissension within Nur al-Din Zangi’s former state in order to challenge the Crusad-ers. 85 This may be true, but the historical facts show that Saladin was ambi-tious and opportunistic. His aim to control the state of his master Nur al-Din was not so benevolent as it might appear on the surface. 81 Isfahani, Sana al-Barq , 177; Wasil, Mufarrij , 2: 11; Shaddad, al-Nawadir, 59; Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh , 1: 616. 82 Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh , 1: 616–617, and al-Tarikh al-Bahir , 177. 83 Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh , 1: 617, and al-Tarikh al-Bahir , 162–163. 84 Isfahani, Sana al-Barq , 168, also cited in Abu Shama, Kitab , 1: 234; Wasil, Mu-farrij , 2: 18. 85 Sa’id Abd al-Fattah Ashur, al-Haraka al-Salibiyya , 1 (Cairo: Maktabat al-Anglo-al-Misriyya, 1963), 2: 742. T HE R ISE OF S ALADIN 735 H.A.R. Gibb maintains that after the death of Nur al-Din Zangi, the centralized military power he had built collapsed. Any man who intended to reconstruct this power had either to absorb the whole Zangid structure into a powerful military empire, or to build on the foundation of moral unity laid down by Nur al-Din. Judging by Saladin’s course of action, one is tempted to say that he chose the first course. In fact, says Gibb, the secret of Sala-din’s success is that he adopted and carried through the second.
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