Nur ad-Din: Zengid Ruler Who Unified Syria (1146-1174)

Nur ad-Din Mahmud (1118–1174) was the Zengid ruler of Aleppo from 1146 and of Damascus from 1154, and the first Muslim leader to unite inland Syria against the crusader states. He combined war against the Franks with a programme of Sunni religious revival, founding schools, mosques and hospitals. His generals brought Egypt under his authority, opening the way for the career of Saladin.

Background and accession

Nur ad-Din, whose name means “Light of the Faith”, was born in February 1118, a son of Imad ad-Din Zengi, atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo. Zengi had captured Edessa from the crusaders in 1144 (see Fall of Edessa), but was murdered on 14 September 1146. His lands were divided: the elder son Sayf ad-Din Ghazi took Mosul, while Nur ad-Din secured Aleppo, closer to the crusader frontier.

Within weeks Nur ad-Din proved himself. When Count Joscelin II reoccupied Edessa in late 1146, he marched quickly, expelled the Franks and left the city devastated.

Wars against the crusader states

Nur ad-Din allied with Mu’in ad-Din Unur, the regent of Damascus, and married his daughter in 1147. In 1148 the armies of the Second Crusade attacked Damascus; Nur ad-Din and his brother advanced with a relief force, and the crusaders lifted the siege after only a few days.

On 29 June 1149 he won a major victory at Inab over the army of Antioch, in which Prince Raymond of Poitiers was killed. In 1150 his allies captured Joscelin II, and the remains of the County of Edessa were lost to the Franks. In August 1164, at the Battle of Harim, he defeated a coalition of crusaders, Armenians and Byzantine troops and captured Bohemond III of Antioch and Raymond III of Tripoli. He suffered setbacks too, notably a surprise defeat below Krak des Chevaliers in 1163.

Damascus and the unification of Syria

Damascus, ruled by the Burid dynasty, had often preferred peace with Jerusalem to submission to Aleppo. Nur ad-Din worked to isolate it, cutting supplies and winning over its religious scholars and population with his reputation for piety. In April 1154 he took the city with little resistance. From then on Aleppo and Damascus were under one ruler, and Muslim Syria faced the crusaders as a single power for the first time.

He was seriously ill in 1157 and again in 1159, which caused fears of collapse, but he recovered and extended his rule over the cities of the Syrian interior and the upper Euphrates.

Egypt and the rise of Saladin

In the 1160s the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt was weak and divided, and both Nur ad-Din and King Amalric of Jerusalem sought to control it. Nur ad-Din sent his Kurdish general Shirkuh on three expeditions, in 1164, 1167 and 1168–1169; Shirkuh’s nephew Saladin went with him. In January 1169 Shirkuh became vizier of Egypt, and on his death two months later Saladin succeeded him.

In September 1171 Saladin ended the Shi’i Fatimid Caliphate and restored prayers for the Sunni Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, as Nur ad-Din wished. Yet Saladin was slow to send money and troops to Syria, and Nur ad-Din was preparing to assert his authority over Egypt when he died in Damascus on 15 May 1174. His young son as-Salih Ismail could not hold the realm, and Saladin soon took over much of it.

Religious and civic works

Nur ad-Din built or endowed numerous madrasas (colleges of religious law), mosques and Sufi lodges, and in Damascus founded a centre for the study of hadith, the reported sayings of the Prophet. Around 1154 he established the Bimaristan al-Nuri in Damascus, a hospital and medical school that functioned for centuries. He also repaired city walls, citadels and markets.

He commissioned a richly carved wooden minbar (pulpit) for the al-Aqsa Mosque, to be installed once Jerusalem was recovered. Saladin placed it there in 1187; it was destroyed in an arson attack in 1969, and a replica was installed in 2007.

Contemporary Muslim writers, including the Damascene chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi and later Ibn al-Athir, portrayed Nur ad-Din as a just and austere ruler who abolished unlawful taxes and lived simply. These accounts helped create the ideal of the pious warrior-prince later attached to Saladin.

Timeline

• 1118, February: Nur ad-Din is born, a son of Zengi.
• 1146, September: Zengi is murdered; Nur ad-Din takes Aleppo.
• 1146, November: He expels Joscelin II from Edessa.
• 1149, 29 June: Victory at Inab; Raymond of Poitiers is killed.
• 1154, April: Nur ad-Din takes Damascus.
• 1164, August: Victory at Harim; two crusader princes are captured.
• 1169, March: Saladin becomes vizier of Egypt.
• 1171, September: The Fatimid Caliphate is abolished.
• 1174, 15 May: Nur ad-Din dies in Damascus.

Why it matters

Nur ad-Din turned a collection of rival Syrian cities into a unified state and gave the struggle against the crusaders a strong religious ideology. His policies, institutions and generals made possible the achievements of Saladin, who completed the union of Egypt and Syria and recaptured Jerusalem in 1187.