Nur al-Din
Nur al-Din (Nur ad-din Abu al-Qasim Mahmud Ibn 'Imad ad-Din Zangi, also called Nur ed- Din, Nur-al-Din or Nureddin) (born 1118 – died May 15, 1174) ruled much of Syria and other regions of the Near East from 1146 to 1174, which was the year of his death.
When Zengi, atabeg of Aleppo and Mosul, died in 1146, his son Sayf al-Din Ghazi succeeded him in Mosul, while Nur al-Din, the second son, took over the government of Aleppo. He soon faced crusader attempts to reconquer Edessa, which had been conquered by Zengi in 1144.
War against the crusaders
In 1147 the leaders of the Second Crusade, summoned to the siege of Edessa, attempted to attack Damascus, a city that had allied itself with the Kingdom of Jerusalem when Zengi had tried to conquer it. On this occasion, Unar, the emir of Damascus, requested help from the brothers Sayf al-Din and Nur al-Din, who forced the crusaders to lift the siege.
Later, Nur al-Din attacked the Principality of Antioch in June 1149, invading the territories dominated by the castle of Harim, on the east bank of the Orontes. He then besieged the castle of Inab. The prince of Antioch, Raymond of Poitiers, came with his army to the aid of the citadel, but they were defeated by the troops of Nur al-Din, who killed Prince Raymond, and sent his head to the caliph of Baghdad. Nur al- Din was able to symbolically bathe in the Mediterranean Sea.
Nur al-Din besieged and conquered Damascus in 1154, politically uniting Syria (as a single family controlled the three main cities).
On the other hand, Ashkelon had been taken by the crusaders in 1153, isolating Egypt from Syria. In 1163, the Crusaders attacked Egypt, which had been weakening politically during a time of very young Fatimid caliphs. Nur al-Din did not want to risk his own army to defend Egypt, but his commander Shirkuh convinced him to intervene in 1164, expelling the crusaders. Other crusading expeditions to Egypt took place, which were again rejected by armies led by Shirkuh, until Egypt was conquered by him for Nur al-Din in 1169.
Saladin, Shirkuh's nephew, became sultan of the territory, accepted by the caliph. Although Saladin nominally recognized Nur al-Din's authority, he administered Egypt with a certain autonomy, without obeying all of Nur al-Din's orders, and avoided meeting him. According to Arab historians, this would be the reason why Saladin did not conquer the territories ruled by the Franks that stood between Egypt and Syria. Tension between Nur al-Din and Saladin led to several escalations of preparations for war. However, a battle between the two leaders did not take place, as Nur al-Din died in 1174 during his expedition to Egypt.
Death occurred on May 15, 1174, due to complications from an abscess, when he was 56 years old, in the citadel of Damascus. He was initially buried there, later being buried in the madrasa of Nur al-Din.He was nominally succeeded by his eleven-year-old son as-Salih Ismail al-Malik, but Saladin ended up taking effective power in Syria as well.