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CHAPTER XV
.
ZENGI AND
THE FALL OF EDESSA
With the establishment of the
county of Tripoli, a rough balance of power was struck in Syria between
crusaders and Moslems. Jerusalem faced Damascus, Antioch faced Aleppo, and
Tripoli faced the group of lesser cities in the upper Orontes valley. Although Aleppo
lay between Antioch and Edessa, they, too, lay between Aleppo and the Moslem
principalities to east and north, as Jerusalem lay between Damascus and Egypt.
The dynasties in the crusading states were, unconsciously but effectively,
absorbed into the system of Syrian politics, with its shifting play of
alliances and counter-alliances, temporary treaties, sudden realignments, and
petty gains and losses.
The point of balance of the
whole system was Aleppo. Its effective absorption by Damascus, or Mosul, or the
northern crusaders, would involve a major regrouping of the forces on either
side. But the local strength of Aleppo lay in its alliance with the Assassins,
and when, after the death of Ridvan in 1113, the zeal
of a new governor, Lulu, regent for Ridvan’s son, led
to a breach with the Assassins, it became too weak to stand by itself and was
forced to seek external support. But support was one thing, in the eyes both of
its governors and of its Shiite population, and absorption quite another. The
main thread in the history of Moslem Syria during the next decade was the
conflict raged round Aleppo, as it oscillated between its more
powerful neighbors, now appealing for their help and now playing them off
against one another.
The first to be approached was Tughtigin at Damascus. But he, realizing after a
personal inspection that the defense of Aleppo in its disorganized and unstable
condition would be a liability so serious as to overstrain his forces, returned
to Damascus. By renewing his treaty with Baldwin, however, he kept his hands
free for eventualities. Lulu then murdered his sovereign, broke with Tughtigin, and appealed to the Selchukid sultan of Iraq, who dispatched the governor of Hamadan, Bursuk ibn-Bursuk, to “restore order in Syria and engage the
Franks”. Scarcely had Bursuk set out in June 1115
than Lulu formed an alliance with Tughtigin and the Artukid chief Il-Ghazi, at the time a refugee in Syria;
Roger of Antioch also, fearing the surrender of Aleppo, joined in the coalition
and brought both Baldwin and Pons of Tripoli into it as well. The unexpected
junction of the Moslem and Christian princes against Selchukid intervention, and the subsequent destruction of Bursuk’s army at Danith by Roger, left uneasy feelings on the
Moslem side. Tughtigin, after a brush with Pons,
found it advisable to repair in person to Baghdad to reinsure himself with the
sultan, and returned to Damascus laden with honors and the grant of full legal
powers over his principality.
The isolation of Aleppo and
the confusion which followed the assassination of Lulu' in 1117 led Tughtigin to support an attempt by Aksungur al-Bursuki, a former governor of Mosul now
established at Rahba, to occupy the city. Its
commander appealed both to Roger and to Il-Ghazi, once more established at Mardin; the former, on payment of tribute, forced the
withdrawal of Aksungur, so that Il-Ghazi, on his
arrival, was coldly received and withdrew to await events.
During Tughtigin’s engagements in the north Baldwin had consolidated his hold on the Transjordan,
but avoided direct hostilities with Damascus. After Baldwin’s death in 1118,
however, Tughtigin entered into an alliance with the
Egyptians, which detained him in the south. As Aksungur was simultaneously engaged in the conflicts in Iraq which followed the death of
sultan Muhammad in the same month, Roger seized the opportunity to open an
attack on Aleppo on his own account. The citizens urgently recalled Il-Ghazi,
who bought a truce with Roger and made arrangements with Tughtigin for a combined campaign in the following year. In June 1119 the two allies
prepared to take the field. Il-Ghazi, arriving first with a motley host of
Turkomans and volunteers, began to raid the valley of Rugia,
and Roger, apparently unaware of the alliance and imagining that he had to deal
only with the usual haphazard incursions, marched out in haste, to anticipate
an attack on al-Atharib. Il-Ghazi wished to await the
disciplined forces of Damascus, but was overborne by the impatient Turkomans,
whose mobility enabled them to take Roger unawares in the rock-strewn region of Darb Sarmada (June 28,
1119).
The ager sanguinis, as
the Franks called Roger’s defeat, relieved the Frankish threat to Aleppo only
for the time being, but committed Il-Ghazi to the onerous responsibility of
defending the city. The Artukids, as has been shown
in an earlier chapter, were the chiefs of an important group of Turkomans, who
were associated with the Selchukids in their conquest
of Syria, but had moved up into the highlands of Mesopotamia after the opening
of the First Crusade. There the two brothers Il-Ghazi and Sokman had constituted around their main castles of Mardin and Hisn Kaifa respectively
principalities which they maintained by means of continual raids upon their
neighbors. With the governors of Mosul, whose principal task it was to keep
them under some sort of control, they were, of course, at perpetual feud;
during Zengi’s governorship, as will be seen, he
devoted far more time and energy to warfare with them than with the Franks of
Syria, and at later moments in the careers of both Nur-ad-Din and Saladin
(Salah-ad-Din) they played a decisive part against Mosul. As the chiefs of the
largest Turkoman groups in the region, they were a valuable source of auxiliary
troops. On the other hand, they were frequently divided by military and
political rivalries, not only between but also within the two branches, and
their Turkomans and Kurdish irregulars, though highly mobile, lacked the
discipline and the stability of the organized Turkish regiments. Though hardy
fighters, the main object of the Turkomans in warfare was booty, and they were
quickly discouraged by a long and unsuccessful campaign. It was difficult,
therefore, for their chiefs to keep them in the field, and this fact, together
with their divisions, made it impossible for the Artukids to build up stable political organizations. The Artukid connection thus gave a very imperfect shelter to Aleppo from the steady
pressure and encroachments of Baldwin from Antioch and Joscelin from Edessa
(Urfa). Il-Ghazi gained few additional resources from his new possession, and
was compelled in any case to devote most of his attention to his Mesopotamian
holdings, where he was shortly afterwards engaged in a disastrous conflict with
the Georgians. But when his son Sulaiman, whom he had left as his
representative at Aleppo, revolted in the summer of 1121, he returned to
Aleppo, cemented the alliance with the Selchukids by
marrying Ridvan’s daughter, and prepared to resume
the offensive against the Franks.
Il-Ghazi’s death in November
1122 left Aleppo still more isolated, until his nephew Nur-ad-Daulah Belek,
after capturing Baldwin, occupied it in June 1123 and began energetically to
reestablish its security. His death while besieging Manbij on May 6, 1124, was
the climax of the city’s misfortunes, since it was now reduced to dependence on
Il-Ghazi’s indolent son and successor at Mardin, Timurtash. At this juncture a fresh claimant appeared in
the person of the Arab chief Dubais ibn-Sadaqah, formerly prince of Hilla in Iraq, who had been
driven out by the combined forces of the caliph and Aksungur al-Bursuki, now governor of Mosul again, and had fled
to his fellow-countryman, the Uqailid prince of Qalat Jabar. With his assistance, Dubais opened negotiations with the Franks and the Shiite citizens of Aleppo, on whose
support he, as a Shiite, counted against the Sunnite Turks and Turkomans. In
June 1124, accordingly, Timurtash released Baldwin,
on his undertaking to surrender Azaz and other fortresses, to pay a ransom of
80,000 gold pieces, and to have no dealings with Dubais.
So far from honoring his word, Baldwin, once free, refused to surrender the
fortresses and formed a league with Dubais. Timurtash, giving up all hope of holding Aleppo, retired to
Mesopotamia, leaving the city to be defended by five hundred horsemen and the
citizens.
The long struggle for Aleppo
had, however, brought into play a new factor in the conflict. Ever since
the ager sanguinis the feeling between Moslem and Christian
had grown more hostile, and the ferocity displayed by Joscelin in his raids in
1123, after his escape from Kharput, had roused the
bitterness of the population of Aleppo to an intense degree. When, therefore,
Baldwin and Joscelin commenced the siege of the city on October 6, 1124, with
their Moslem allies, including not only Dubais and
the Arab chief of Qalat Jabar, but also a son of Ridvan and a minor Artukid, they
were met by a vigorous and unflinching resistance. After vain appeals to Timurtash, the citizens, in desperation, were forced to beg
for what they had so long and so tenaciously resisted, the protection of Mosul. Aksungur al-Bursuki acted
at once, and advanced with such speed and secrecy that the besiegers, taken by
surprise on the night of January 29, 1125, withdrew without a combat.
Although Aleppo had thus by a
chain of accidents become a dependency of Mosul it was not thereby reabsorbed
into the Selchukid state. Whatever its formal status
may have been, Aksungur, like Zengi after him, saw it rather as a means by which to establish an independent and
hereditary principality. For this purpose Mosul alone, owing to its proximity
to the centers of Selchukid power, was insufficient.
The possession of Aleppo gave depth to his holding, and might, once he regained
control of its territories, provide additional material and financial support.
In a tactical sense it was even more valuable, for by its position as an
outpost of Islam against the Franks its possession invested the governor of
Mosul with the character of a champion of the faith against the “infidel”, and
the strength of Moslem feeling would make it difficult for the sultan to take
vigorous action against him.
Although the union with Mosul
removed from Aleppo the immediate menace of a Frankish conquest, there was an
active party among the citizens to whom it came as a severe blow. These were
the Assassins, who had by favor of the Artukids recovered their strength during the troubled decade. The occupation of Aleppo
by an “easterner” boded them no good, and the all-but-inevitable consequence
followed when Aksungur, after some minor operations
in conjunction with Tughtigin during 1125 and II26,
was struck down in the great mosque of Mosul in November 1126.
His son Masud received at once the allegiance of Aleppo and the sultan’s confirmation of his
governorship of the two cities. But a growing party of the citizens, among them
it may be suspected the Assassins, showed some resistance; and Masud, on his way to seize Hamah from Tughtigin,
died suddenly while besieging Rahba in May 1127.
Although his nominee Kutlug Abeh succeeded in occupying Aleppo, the citizens rebelled, proclaimed allegiance to
an Artukid prince, and besieged the garrison in the
citadel. Joscelin seized the opportunity to make a fresh attack, but was bought
off, and was afterwards prevented from further aggression by hostilities with
Bohemond II of Antioch.
Meanwhile a deputation of
notables from Mosul to Baghdad had been persuaded to ask sultan Mahmud to
appoint as their governor Imad-ad-Din Zengi, the son
of an earlier Aksungur, al-Hajib, who had been
appointed governor of Aleppo by sultan Malik-Shah in 1086 and executed by Tutush in 1094. He had succeeded Aksungur al-Bursuld of Mosul as military governor of Iraq in
1126. In consideration of “a handsome contribution” to the treasury, the sultan
granted the diploma for Mosul to Zengi, in the
capacity of atabeg or regent for his son, the malik Alp
Arslan. Zengi took over Mosul in September 1127
without opposition, set about reducing its outlying dependencies, and in
January 1128 sent a detachment to occupy Aleppo. The general Sala-ad-Din al-Yaghisiyani (or al-Ghisyani) was
nominated as its governor, and shortly afterwards Zengi himself marched into Syria and entered the city on June 18. In thus restoring
the union between Mosul and Aleppo, however, Zengi had gone beyond the terms of his appointment. When he presented himself at the
court some months later he found the sultan unwilling, not without reason, to
endow so ambitious an officer with such extensive domains, and only on the
intercession of the caliph did he consent to grant him the diploma for Aleppo
also.
The first effects of the
altered balance of Moslem power in the north were felt by Damascus. Baldwin I
had directed the brunt of his attacks on Egypt and the Egyptian possessions in
Asia, and endeavored to maintain the neutrality of Damascus. Baldwin II, on the
other hand, on all occasions when he was free to take the initiative, directed
his attacks towards Damascus. The disaster at the ager sanguinis,
however, by involving Baldwin in the north, freed Tughtigin not only to join in the campaigns in the north but also to negotiate with
Egypt. There in December 1121, the powerful vizier al-Afdal had been assassinated and replaced by al-Mamun, who gave immediate evidence of
his intention to adopt a more active policy in Palestine and Syria, and took
measures to build up the Egyptian fleet. Hoping for support from Tughtigin after Belek’s capture of Baldwin, he dispatched a
force by sea to Jaffa in May 1123, but the expected assistance from Damascus
failed to arrive. The Egyptians were defeated on land near Ibelin (Yabna) by the constable Eustace Gamier, and on sea
by the Venetians under the doge Domenico Michiel. The double defeat made it impossible
to send relief to Tyre when it was besieged in the following year, and Tughtigin could do no more than negotiate the terms of
surrender of the city, no doubt ensuring that satisfactory arrangements were
made for commercial relations with Damascus.
In his negotiations with
Egypt, Tughtigin had associated Aksungur with himself, and these continued even after Aksungur’s occupation of Aleppo. In all probability, it was this tentative movement
towards closer relations among Egypt, Damascus, and Aleppo which explains
Baldwin's attack on Ascalon in November
1125, followed by an invasion of Damascus territory in January
1126. The defeat inflicted on the army of Damascus by this reconnaissance
in force accomplished the object, if such it was, of forestalling any concerted
action, and prepared the way for the invasion three years later.
It is in connection with this
battle that the cooperation of the Assassins with the army of Damascus is
mentioned for the first time. That the Assassins, discouraged by the union of
Aleppo with Mosul, had decided to try their fortunes at Damascus seems clear,
and it is equally clear that this was done with the consent of Tughtigin. In this policy is to be seen his reaction to the
new situation in the north. The union of Aleppo with Mosul had the effect of
placing Damascus in the precariously isolated position from which Aleppo had
just escaped, at the price of its independence. Alliance with the Franks was
out of the question, in view of the hostile attitude of Baldwin II, and equally
so any effective alliance with Egypt. The only course open to Tughtigin was to mobilize in its support all the strength
which could be gained from local Syrian forces, and even their enemies did not
deny the courage and gallantry of the Assassins. It is certainly the fact that,
after his defeat by Baldwin, Tughtigin openly
acknowledged the alliance by assigning the frontier castle of Banyas to the leader of the Assassins in November 1126.
A month after Zengi’s occupation of Aleppo, Tughtigin died (February 1128) after a prolonged illness. He was succeeded by his son Bori, who proved himself to be equal to the successive
dangers to which Damascus was exposed. On Tughtigin’s death the Assassins at Banyas resumed their terrorist
activities, under the shelter of the vizier at Damascus. Fortunately for Bori, they were severely worsted in a conflict with the Druzes of Wadi-t-Taim, and he
seized the opportunity to root them out of the city (September 1129), but at
the cost of Banyas, which they surrendered to the
Franks. Two months later Baldwin, reinforced by the arrival of Fulk of Anjou
and the troops of the northern principalities, marched on Damascus. Bori, forewarned, had enlisted in its defense some
thousands of Turkomans and Arabs, who threw a cordon round the crusading army,
and dispatched a strong force to waylay a foraging expedition to the Hauran under William of Bures. The defeat suffered by the
latter and the consequent retreat of the crusaders was recognized on both sides
as an event that put an end, for many years, to Baldwin’s policy of attack on
Damascus, and shortly afterwards a treaty was negotiated to regulate their
political and commercial relations.
The third, and still greater,
threat to Bori’s principality followed in the spring
or early summer of 1130, when Zengi returned to Syria
and called for the cooperation of Damascus “to prosecute the holy war”. With
natural suspicion, Bori swore him to good faith
before dispatching a strong contingent and instructing his son Sevinj, at Hamah, to join it with his own forces. He had
already suffered a serious loss in the defection of Sevar,
one of the ablest Turkish generals of his age, who joined Zengi at Aleppo and was rewarded with its governorship. On their arrival at Zengi’s camp Sevinj and the
Damascene officers were seized and placed in confinement at Aleppo; at the same
time Zengi occupied the now undefended stronghold of
Hamah and marched on Homs, notwithstanding his engagements towards its prince,
Kir-Khan, who, with his forces, was actually serving in his army. But the
garrison and citizens of Homs refused to surrender and after a fruitless siege Zengi returned to Mosul, taking his prisoners with him. The
capture of Dubais ibn-Sadaqah by Bori’s Arab auxiliaries in the following year
enabled him to negotiate the release of Sevinj and
his officers in return for the surrender of Dubais to Zengi; but the whole episode had given clear warning
that the first objective of Zengi’s “holy war” in
Syria was none other than Damascus.
It was some years, however,
before the attempt was renewed. The death of sultan Mahmud in September 1131
was followed by a struggle between his brothers for the succession to the
sultanate of Iraq, into which Zengi was inevitably
drawn as a partisan of sultan Masud. At the height of
the struggle he, in association with Dubais,
attempted even to seize Baghdad, but was defeated by the forces of the caliph
al-Mustarshid, who retaliated a few months later by
besieging Mosul (August-October 1133). Warned by this experience to abstain
from further adventures in Iraq for the time being, Zengi turned his attention to the Artukid principalities in
Mesopotamia. Profiting by the rivalry between Timurtash,
the son of Il-Ghazi, and his cousin Daud lbn-Sokman of Hisn Kaifa, he made an
alliance with the former and in 1134 seized and transferred to him many of
Daud’s northern fortresses, but failed in an attempt to subdue the independent
fortress of Amida (Diyarbakir). In the midst of these operations, an unexpected
invitation to take possession of Damascus brought him back in haste to Syria in
February 1135.
In June 1132 Bori had died as the result of wounds inflicted by
Assassins, and was succeeded by his son, Shams-al-Muluk Ismail. After a successful start with the recapture of Banyas (December 1132) and of Hamah (August 1133), followed by a devastating raid on
the county of Galilee in retaliation for a Frankish raid on the Hauran (September 1134), he alienated by his tyrannical
conduct both his troops and his subjects. Realizing, apparently, their growing
exasperation, he wrote secretly to Zengi urging him
to come with all speed to receive the surrender of Damascus, and threatening to
deliver it up to the Franks if he should delay.
Whatever their grievances
against Shams-al-Muluk Ismail, the army and the
citizens were equally resolute in their hostility to Zengi,
“knowing as they did”, in the words of the Damascus chronicler, “what the
conduct of Zengi would be if he should capture the
city”'. Ismail having been disposed of by the palace guards and his brother
Mahmud proclaimed in his place, the population under the command of the general
Mun-ad-Din Unur (or Onor)
effectually prevented Zengi from pressing his siege.
An opportune command from the caliph to withdraw from Damascus and to take over
the government of Iraq gave him an opening for negotiations, and he marched
north on March 15. But not at once to Iraq, for after regaining Hamah on the
way he opened a lightning campaign against the unsuspecting Franks.
During the intervening years Sevar had engaged in minor hostilities with Antioch and
Tell Bashir, but little change had been made in the general situation of
Aleppo, which was still under close surveillance from the castles held by the
Franks co north and west. Within a few weeks Zengi cleared the whole of its western and southwestern approaches, by the capture of
al-Atharib, Zardana, Ma'arrat-an-Numan, and other fortresses, while Sevar moved against Azaz and Aintab (Gaziantep). Then,
after vainly besieging Homs again, Zengi returned to
Mosul, leaving Scevar to follow up his offensive with
the aid of the Turkoman irregulars, who were at this time moving into Syria in
increasing numbers. As soon as he had gone, the sons of Kir-Khan negotiated the
surrender of Homs to Damascus; it was given in fief to Unur,
and had immediately to sustain incursions by Sevar,
until an armistice was signed. The Turkomans were compensated by an extensive
and profitable raid on the district of Latakia in April 1136.
Zengi’s second intervention in Iraq was little more successful than the first. In
the autumn of 1135 the caliph al-Mustarshid had
attempted to organize a coalition against sultan Masud,
and Zengi, accompanying the Selchukid malik Daud ibn-Mahmud, moved up to Baghdad to join in the alliance. Al-Mustarshid had in the meantime marched out against the
sultan, but was deserted by his Turkish troops, defeated, captured, and killed
by Assassins. Daud and Zengi then proclaimed his son ar-Rashid caliph and swore to support his cause, but no
sooner did sultan Masud move on Baghdad than they
both fled. Ar-Rashid followed Zengi to Mosul, but Zengi, having sent an envoy to the
sultan and obtained from him additional fiefs and honors, refused to receive
the fugitive caliph, who was forced to take refuge with Daud in Azerbaijan, and
was subsequently killed by Assassins while besieging Isfahan.
In the spring of 1137 Zengi returned to Syria and renewed his attack on Homs, but
again failed to overcome Unur’s resistance.
Concluding an armistice with Damascus, he turned northwards on July 11 to
attack Barin, and had the good fortune to surprise
Fulk, who threw himself into the castle. The advance of a relieving army from
Antioch and Edessa, together with the news of the approach of John Comnenus to
Antioch, forced him to allow the garrison to evacuate the castle on payment of
ransom. He withdrew to Aleppo and set the population to work on its
fortifications against a Greek attack, until he was relieved by the temporary
withdrawal of the emperor and an exchange of embassies with him, when he led
his forces back into Damascus territories, and captured Ainjar and Banyas. He then returned to his attack on Homs,
and was still besieging it when the Greek offensive took him by surprise at the
beginning of April 1138.11
The short delay of the Greek
army at Buza’ah (April 3-9) was just long enough to
give warning to the garrison of Aleppo and to allow of their reinforcement by
detachments from Zengi’s squadrons. The emperor
halted outside Aleppo for two days only (April 18-20), and marched on Ma’arrat-an-Numan and Kafartab,
while a detachment occupied al-Atharib. Zengi hastily withdrew the rest of his forces to Salamyah, sent his baggage-train to Raqqa, and himself with
his light-armed cavalry remained on guard. At the end of April the emperor laid
siege to Shaizar. Zengi’s cavalry could only harass
his flanks until a force of Turkomans, sent by Daud of Hisn Kaifa, and a detachment from Damascus came up to
reinforce him; at the same time news of the attacks upon his lines of
communications by the Danishmendids and Selchukids decided John Comnenus to raise the siege after
twenty-three days, and he withdrew to Antioch.
The effect of this futile
Greek campaign was only to enhance Zengi’s reputation. Scarcely were the Greeks gone before he negotiated an agreement
with Damascus, and received Homs (in exchange for Barin)
as dowry on his marriage with the queen-mother (June 1138). Kafartab,
al-Atharib, and Buza’ah were rapidly reoccupied and the territories of Edessa were overrun by the
Turkomans of Timurtash and Daud. Leaving Sevar once more in command of his Syrian possessions, Zengi returned to Mosul, and in the following year took
Dara and Ras al-Ain from Timurtash as dowry for
another marriage, with the daughter of Timurtash.
Again Zengi was recalled to Damascus, this time at the invitation of his wife, the
queen-mother, who was indignant at the murder of the prince Mahmud and his
replacement by his brother Muhammad, formerly governor of Baalbek (June 23,
1139). Baalbek was besieged and captured, and its garrison crucified
notwithstanding his oath of security. After refortifying it Zengi withdrew to the Biqa valley and tried to negotiate
the surrender of Damascus. On the rejection of his demands, he blockaded the
city from December until the following May, without result. During the siege
the prince Muhammad fell ill and died, and Unur set
up his young son Abak in his place without
opposition. Despite the determination of both troops and population to resist Zengi, however, Unur realized
that in its isolated situation the city could not hold out indefinitely, and
fell back on the only remaining source of external support. A formal alliance
was negotiated with the kingdom of Jerusalem against the common enemy, and in
return for the assistance of the crusaders Unur undertook to pay 20,000 pieces of gold per month for their expenses, to give
hostages, and to restore Banyas to them after Zengi’s withdrawal.
When the crusaders began to
assemble at Tiberias, Zengi retired to the Hauran (May 4), before the Franks and Damascenes could join
forces. In his absence the allies besieged Banyas; Zengi remained strangely inactive, and the governor, at the
end of a month, surrendered to Unur on terms. Unur delivered the castle up to Fulk, but before he could
return to Damascus Zengi reappeared in the Ghutah and devastated it for three days. He retired
northwards, but a week later attempted a sudden coup de main at dawn, and when it
failed finally withdrew with an immense booty.
Five years passed before he
returned to Syria, if ever, and during this time little but border raids are
recorded between the Moslems and the Franks. The treaty between Damascus and
Jerusalem was apparently maintained in force, and the Greek expedition of 1142
involved no Moslem troops in action. One small but influential new political
force had, however, established itself between the Moslem and Latin
principalities during the preceding years. This was the Assassins who,
beginning with the purchase of al-Qadmus in
1132-1133, after their expulsion from Banyas, had
gradually acquired other strongholds in the Nusairi mountains (Jabal Ansariyah), and in 1140-1141 seized Masyaf as their headquarters.
From his base at Mosul Zengi was actively engaged for the next three years in
operations directed mainly against the Artukid Daud
and the small Kurdish baronies to the north. He began also to feel his way
cautiously back into Iraq, and in 1143 captured Hadithah and Anah on the Euphrates. Sultan Mas'ud was at the time occupied in dealing with rebellions in various quarters, which
he ascribed, with some justice, to Zengi’s intrigues
in order to prevent him from intervening. Having at length restored order, the
sultan assembled his forces at Baghdad and prepared to settle his account with Zengi, at the same time investing his own brother Daud with
the command of the holy war in Syria. Zengi, in
extreme alarm, made his submission, and the sultan, for reasons not specified,
found it advisable to reach a reconciliation with him.
The chronology of these and
the following events, and the relation between them, is still uncertain in
detail. In August 1144 Daud ibn-Sokman died and was
succeeded by a younger son, Kara Arslan. Zengi immediately overran most of his territories and then, since Kara Arslan had,
apparently, begun to negotiate with Joscelin, occupied the eastern fortresses
of the county in Shabakhtan, on the headwaters of the
Khabur river, in order to cut communication between them. On Zengi’s return to renew his assault on Amida, Kara Arslan
offered to surrender to Joscelin the fortress of Bibol,
north of Gargar, in return for his assistance.
Joscelin at once set out towards the west, taking with him a strong contingent of
his forces, whereupon Zengi, informed of the
temporary weakness of the garrison at Edessa, advanced by forced marches and
encircled it (November 24). Before Joscelin and his outnumbered army could
intervene, Zengi, calling up all his available
vassals and auxiliaries, smothered the defense and broke into the city on
December 24. The citadel fell two days later, and Zengi,
first killing all the Franks and destroying their churches, but sparing the
native Christians and their churches to the best of his ability, gave the city
in fief to the commander of his guard, Zain-ad-Din “Ali Kuchuk”.
The reactions to this event
were almost as widespread in the east as in the west. By his fortunate conquest Zengi acquired the reputation of a “defender of the
faith”, which went far to atone for his defects of character and grasping
policies. The caliph showered on him presents and titles, including that
of al-malik al-mansur, “the
victorious king”, and the contemporary chronicles bear witness to the
resounding fame of his exploit throughout the Moslem world. For himself, he
energetically prosecuted the advantage he had gained, cleared Saruj and other strongholds, and besieged Bira (Birejik), which guarded the Euphrates crossing to Tell
Bashir (March 1145).
At this juncture one of the Selchukid princes in his care, Farrukh-Shah ibn-Mahmud,
seized the occasion of his absence to murder the governor of Mosul (May 1145)
and to proclaim himself ruler. Though the revolt was put down with case by the
garrison troops, the incident reawakened all his fears. Hastily ordering Ali Kuchuk to proceed to Mosul, he himself made first for
Aleppo in order to forestall possible repercussions there. On his return to
Mosul, he brought the other Selchukid prince, Alp
Arslan, out of confinement and thereafter carried him with him on his
expeditions.
Late in the same year he began
to make preparations for a decisive attack on Damascus and had actually set out
when, early in 1146, an Armenian plot to restore Edessa to Joscelin changed his
plans. Probably moved by suspicions of an understanding between Joscelin and
his former ally, the Artukid Timurtash,
he turned against the latter, seized Tall ash-Shaikh, and after further
operations moved southwards to reduce another ally of the Franks, the Uqailid Arab prince of Dausar, or Qalat Jabar, at the eastward bend of the Euphrates.
Here, on the night of September 14, 1146, he was assassinated by one of his
slaves.
The first reactions of the
troops on the report of Zengi’s death showed that his
fears of a Selchukid revolution in Mosul had not been
without foundation. An eye-witness account describes their demonstrations
against Zengi’s officers and vizier in favor of the Selchukid malik Alp Arslan. But before he
could seize the opportunity, Ali Kuchuk, who had been
left in command at Mosul, in agreement with the vizir Jamal-ad-Din, summoned Zengi’s eldest son, Saif-ad-Din Ghazi, from his fief at Shahrazur and installed him. On his advance towards the
city Alp Arslan was seized, imprisoned, and never seen again. While the issue
at Mosul was still in doubt the governors of Hamah and Aleppo, al-Yaghisiyani and Sevar, led back
the Syrian contingents accompanied by Zengi’s second
son Nur-ad-Din Mahmud, and set him up in his father’s place at Aleppo. The era
of Moslem expansion which had begun under Zengi was
to continue with almost unabated success under Nur-ad-Din.
CHAPTER XVI
THE SECOND CRUSADE
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