Zengi's father, Aq Sunqur al-Hajib, governor of Aleppo under Malik-Shah I, was beheaded by Tutush I for treason in 1094. At the time, Zengi was about 10 years old and brought up by Kerbogha, the governor of Mosull.
Governor of Iraq
The region of Mesopotamia was under the control of the Seljuk Empire from 1055 to 1135, since the Oghuz Turk Tughril Beg had expelled the ShiiteBuyid dynasty. Tughril Beg was the first Seljuk ruler to style himself Sultan and Protector of the Abbasid Caliphate.[4][5] Mesopotamia remained under the control of the Great Seljuks during the reign of Muhammad I Tapar (1082–1118 CE), but from 1119, his 14 years old son Mahmud II (1118-1131) was restricted to the only rule of Iraq, while Sanjar took control of the rest of the Empire.[6]
In order to counter the ambitions of Abbasid Caliph al-Mustarshid (1118-1135), who wanted to acquire world dominance, in 1124 Mahmūd granted the city of Wasit to Zengi as an ıqta, and conferred him the Military Governorship of Basra together with Baghdad and the whole of Iraq in 1127. That same year, Zengi was also named Governor of Mosul, where the Atabegdom of Mosul was formed.[6]
Zengi against Damascus
Following the death in 1128 of Toghtekin, atabeg of Damascus, a power vacuum threatened to open Syria to renewed Crusader aggression.[7] Zengi became atabeg of Mosul in 1127 and of Aleppo in 1128, uniting the two cities under his personal rule, and was formally invested as their ruler by the Seljuk Sultan Mahmud II. Zengi had supported the young sultan against his rival, the caliph al-Mustarshid.
In 1130 Zengi allied with Taj al-Mulk Buri of Damascus against the Crusaders, but this was only a ruse to extend his power; he had Buri's son taken prisoner and seized Hama from him. Zengi also besieged Homs, the governor of which was accompanying him at the time, but could not capture it, so he returned to Mosul, where Buri's son and the other prisoners from Damascus were ransomed for 50,000 dinars. The next year, Zengi agreed to return the 50,000 dinars if Buri would deliver to him Dubais ibn Sadaqa, emir of al-Hilla in Iraq, who had fled to Damascus to escape al-Mustarshid. When an ambassador from the caliph arrived to bring Dubais back, Zengi attacked him and killed some of his retinue; the ambassador returned to Baghdad without Dubais.
Mahmud II died in 1131, setting off a war for the succession. As the Seljuk princes were occupied fighting one another in Persia, Zengi marched on Baghdad to add it to his dominions. He was defeated by the caliph's troops, however, and only escaped thanks to the help of the governor of Tikrit, Najm ad-Din Ayyub, future father of Saladin. Several years later, Zengi would reward the governor with a position in his army, paving the way for Saladin's brilliant career.
The Citadel of Aleppo was fortified by the Zengids during the Crusades. Imad ad-Din Zengi, followed by his son Nur ad-Din (ruled 1147–1174), unified Aleppo and Damascus and held back the Crusaders from their repeated assaults on the cities.[8]
In 1134 Zengi became involved in Artuqid affairs, allying with the emir Timurtash (son of Ilghazi) against Timurtash's cousin Rukn al-Dawla Da'ud. Zengi's real desires, however, lay to the south, in Damascus. In 1135 Zengi received an appeal for help from Shams ul-Mulk Isma'il, who had succeeded his father Buri as emir of Damascus, and who was in fear for his life from his own citizenry, who considered him a cruel tyrant. Ismail was willing to surrender the city to Zengi in order to restore peace. None of Isma'il's family or advisors wanted this, however, and Isma'il was murdered by his own mother, Zumurrud, to prevent him from turning over the city to Zengi's control. Isma'il was succeeded by his brother Shihab al-Din Mahmud.
Zengi was not discouraged by this turn of events and arrived at Damascus anyway, still intending to seize it. The siege lasted for some time with no success on Zengi's part, so a truce was made and Shahib al-Din's brother Bahram-Shah was given as a hostage. At the same time, news of the siege had reached the caliph and Baghdad, and a messenger was sent with orders for Zengi to leave Damascus and take control of the governance of Iraq. The messenger was ignored, but Zengi gave up the siege, as per the terms of the truce with Shihab al-Din. On the way back to Aleppo, Zengi besieged Homs, whose governor had angered him, and Shihab al-Din responded to the city's call for help by sending Mu'in al-Din Unur to govern it.
Conflict with the Crusaders and Byzantines
John II directs the Siege of Shaizar while his allies sit inactive in their camp, French manuscript 1338.Territories of Zengi in 1146 (in green )
In 1137 Zengi besieged Homs again, but Mu'in al-Din successfully defended it. In response, Damascus allied with the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem against him. That year, Zengi laid siege to a Crusader fortress during the battle of Ba'rin and quickly crushed the army of Jerusalem. King Fulk of Jerusalem agreed to surrender and was allowed to flee with his surviving troops. Zengi, realizing that this new expedition against Damascus was bound to fail, made peace with Shahib al-Din, just in time to be confronted at Aleppo by an army sent by the Byzantine EmperorJohn II Comnenus. The Emperor had recently brought the Crusader Principality of Antioch under Byzantine control, and had allied himself with Joscelin II of Edessa and Raymond of Antioch. Facing a combined Byzantine/Crusader threat, Zengi mobilized his forces and recruited assistance from other Muslim leaders. In April 1138 the armies of the Byzantine emperor and the Crusader princes laid siege to Shaizar, but they were turned back by Zengi's forces a month later.
In May 1138 Zengi came to an agreement with Damascus. He married Zumurrud Khatun, the same woman who had murdered her son Ismail, and received Homs as her dowry. In July 1139 Zumurrud's surviving son, Shihab al-Din, was assassinated, and Zengi marched on Damascus to take possession of the city. The Damascenes, united under Mu'in al-Din Unur, acting as regent for Shihab al-Din's successor Jamal al-Din, once again allied with Jerusalem to repel Zengi. Zengi also besieged Jamal al-Din's former possession of Baalbek, and Mu'in al-Din was in charge of its defenses as well. Zengi obtained its surrender in response to a promise of safe passage; he did not honor it,[9] ordering that the defenders be crucified.[10] He granted the territory to his lieutenant Najm al-Din Ayyub, father of Saladin.[9] After Zengi abandoned his siege of Damascus, Jamal al-Din died of a disease and was succeeded by his son Mujir al-Din, with Mu'in al-Din remaining as regent.
Mu'in al-Din signed a new peace treaty with Jerusalem for their mutual protection against Zengi. While Mu'in al-Din and the crusaders joined together to besiege Banias in 1140, Zengi once more laid siege to Damascus, but quickly abandoned it again. There were no major engagements between the crusaders, Damascus, and Zengi for the next few years, but Zengi in the meantime campaigned in the north and captured Ashib and the Armenian fortress of Hizan.
In 1144, Zengi began the siege of Edessa against the crusader County of Edessa, the weakest and least Latinized crusader state, and captured it on December 24, 1144, after a siege of four months. This event led to the Second Crusade, and later Muslim chroniclers noted it as the start of the jihad against the Crusader states.
Death and legacy
Death of Sanguius (Zengi) in "Histoire d'Outremer", Guillaume de Tyr MS, 1232-61, British Library.[11]
Zengi continued his attempts to take Damascus in 1145, but he was assassinated by a Frankish slave named Yarankash in September 1146, after the atabeg drunkenly threatened him with punishment for drinking from his goblet.[12] Zengi was the founder of the eponymous Zengid dynasty. In Mosul he was succeeded by his eldest son Sayf al-Din Ghazi I, and in Aleppo he was succeeded by his second son Nur al-Din. When Sayf died in 1149, he was succeeded in Mosul by a third son Qutb al-Din Mawdud.[citation needed]
Unlike Saladin at Jerusalem in 1187, Zengi did not keep his word to protect his captives at Baalbek in 1139. According to Ibn al-‘Adim, Zengi "had sworn to the people of the citadel with strong oaths and on the Qur’an and divorcing (his wives). When they came down from the citadel he betrayed them, flayed its governor and hanged the rest.”[13]
According to Ibn 'al-Adim:
The atebeg was violent, powerful, awe-inspiring and liable to attack suddenly… When he rode, the troops use to walk behind him as if they were between two threads, out of fear they would trample over crops, and nobody out of fear dared to trample on a single stem (of them) nor march his horse on them… If anyone transgressed, he was crucified. He (Zengi) used to say: "It does not happen that there is more than one tyrant (meaning himself) at one time."[14]
^Shahbazi, Shapur (30 August 2020). "CLOTHING". Encyclopaedia Iranica Online. Brill. Nevertheless, the most distinctive feature of late Saljuq and post-Saljuq male dress was the popularity of patterned textiles for these garments. (...) That these patterns do not merely represent ceramic conventions is clear from the rendering of garments in fragmentary wall paintings and in illustrations from the copy of Varqa wa Golšāh already mentioned, as well as in frontispieces to the volumes of Abu'l-Faraj Eṣfahānī's Ketāb al-aḡānī dated 614-16/1217-19 and to two copies of Ketāb al-deryāq (Book of antidotes) by Pseudo-Galen, dated 596/1199 and ascribed to the second quarter of the 7th/13th century respectively (Survey of Persian Art V, pl. 554A-B; Ateş, pls. 1/3, 6/16, 18; D. S. Rice, 1953, figs. 14-19; Ettinghausen, 1962, pp. 65, 85, 91). The last three manuscripts, all of them attributed to northern Mesopotamia, show that the stiff coat with diagonal closing and arm bands was also worn in that region from the end of the 6th/12th century.
^ abcAlptekin, C. (1972). The Reign of Zangī (521-541/1127-1146). University of London. pp. 47, 98, 133.
^El-Azhari, Taef (2016). "The early career of Zengi, 1084 to 1127. The Turkmen influence.". Zengi and the Muslim Response to the Crusades. London and New York: Routledge. p. 10. This chapter is concerned with Zengi's early career and upbringing, his Seldjuk background...
^ abKüçüksipahioğlu, Birsel (30 June 2020). "Musul ve Halep Valisi İmâdeddin Zengi'nin Haçlılarla Mücadelesi". Journal of Oriental Studies. 0 (36). doi:10.26650/jos.2020.005. Staying in Mosul until the death of Sultān Muhammad Tapar in 1118, Zangi then entered the service of the Sultān's son and the new Seljuk ruler Mahmūd (1118-1119), remaining loyal to him to the end. With the new era introduced with the defeat of Sultān Mahmūd in the Sāveh battle he engaged his uncle Sanjar in 1119, which opened the way for Sanjar (1119-1157) to accede to the throne of Great Seljuk Empire, Mahmūd was assigned to the Iraqi Seljuk Sultānate (1119-1131), continuing his rule there. In 1124, Sultān Mahmūd granted the city of Wasit to Imad al-Din Zangi as a ıqta, and conferred him the Military Governorship of Basra together with Baghdad and Iraq in 1127. The reason behind such assignments was to attempt to impede Abbasid Caliph al-Mustarshid (1118-1135) who then wished to build a worldwide dominance. Indeed, the efforts of Zangi in the fight of Mahmūd, whom Sanjar urgently sent to Baghdad, against the Caliph ensured the Sultān became victorious, and he contributed to the efforts in damaging the sole authority and dominance claims of the Caliph. Following the deaths of Mosul Governor Aq-Sunqur el-Porsuqi and his successor and son Mas'ud in the same year in 1127, Zangi was appointed Governor of Mosul. He was also in charge of al-Jazeera and Northern Syria, and Sultān Mahmūd approved him being assigned as the Atabeg of his two sons, Farrukh shah and Alparsalan. Thus the Atabegdom of Mosul was formed.
The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, Extracted and Translated from the Chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi. H.A.R. Gibb, 1932 (reprint, Dover Publications, 2002).
Gonella, Julia (2005). Die Zitadelle von Aleppo und der Tempel des Wettergottes. Rhema-Verlag, Münster. ISBN978-3-930454-44-0.
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