As with Saladin after him, it is difficult to disentangle and evaluate the motivation – religious, personal, familial – of Nur al-Din in the complex web of rivalries and military encounters which constituted his career. But it is important to stress that the Muslim chroniclers are at pains to portray him as a pious Sunni Muslim ruler and a zealous fighter of jihad against the Franks. Moreover, it is he, rather than Saladin, whose reputation was most glorious in the succeeding centuries in the Islamic world as the very prototype of the mujahid. Saladin, as Chapter 8 will show, was ‘rediscovered’ by the Muslims in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The Religious Dimensions of the Career of Nur al-Din
The Muslim chroniclers portray the earlier military leaders who fought the Franks – for example, Il-Ghazi and above all Zengi, the father of Nur al-Din – in terms primarily of their military achievements. But in the case of Nur al-Din they give pride of place to the religious dimensions of his career. However much this may be propaganda or image-making on their part, the fact remains that this is how the Muslim chroniclers, notably those of the thirteenth century, wish to depict Nur al-Din. Arguably the greatest of all medieval Islamic historians, Ibn al-Athir (d. 630/1233), worked for the Zengids, the family dynasty of Zengi and Nur al-Din, and he is a powerful advocate of the cause of Nur al-Din, sometimes to the detriment of Saladin.
We shall now examine the various constituent elements which together form the image of Nur al-Din as the ideal Sunni ruler and jihad, fighter.
The Relationship between Nur al-Din and the Religious Classes
An important aspect of this image was the patronage which Nur al-Din extended to the religious classes of Syria and the increasingly close relationship he enjoyed with them (plates 3.9, 3.10, 3.11, 3.12). This was a relationship which helped to mould the image of Nur al-Din as much more than a military opportunist engaged in policies of territorial expansion. For their part, the religious classes were closely involved in the military campaigns of Nur al-Din, both before they began and while they were being carried out. During the campaigns into Egypt sponsored by Nur al-Din in 1160s, two Hanbalite jurists, Muwaffaq al-Din ibn Qudama and his cousin ‘Abd al-Ghani, became important propagandists and held readings of the profession of faith by Ibn Batta (d. 387/997),53 an eloquent tract which preaches a return to the pure Islam of Muhammad. The army of Nur al-Din contained religious men – lawyers and mystics – who were actually prepared to fight in the ranks.54 Also in the ranks were other figures – prayer leaders, Qur’an readers, preachers, judges – who enhanced the religious dimension of the military conflict.
Plate 3.9 Funerary madrasa of Nur al-Din, 567/1172, muqarnas domes, Damascus, Syria
Plate 3.10 Funerary madrasa of Nur al-Din, 567/1172, muqarnas dome, Damascus, Syria
Plate 3.11 Funerary madrasa of Nur al-Din, 567/1172, door, Damascus, Syria
(Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 5673)
Plate 3.12 Funerary madrasa of Nur al-Din, 567/1172, interior of muqarnas dome, Damascus, Syria
(Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 5502)
In his turn Nur al-Din gave generous sponsorship to the religious classes with his patronage of religious monuments as part of his aim to revitalise Sunni Islam in his territories and to stimulate popular piety and jihad. Such monuments, because they are often dated precisely by their inscriptions, provide invaluable first-hand historical evidence. Some texts were colossal in size: the inscription in the name of Nur al-Din on the Jami’ al-Nuri in Hama, for example, is more than seven metres long (plates 3.13, 3.14, 3.15 and figure 3.21). It should be emphasised that these inscriptions, with their grandiose titulature in the name of Nur al-Din, were all in public buildings, so that his claims to be a mujahid (a fighter for jihad) had a proclamatory quality, a marked public dimension which could be seen by all.
The monuments of Nur al-Din have been studied very closely in recent years by Tabbaa who is in no doubt of their propagandistic significance in the jihad campaign against the Crusaders. He is at pains to link monuments and inscriptions in this context. Beginning with the second inscription in the name of Nur al-Din, on the Madrasa al-Halawiyya, dated Shawwal 544/February-March 1149, the titles given to him, in sharp contrast to the Persian and Turkish ones recorded for his father Zengi, emphasise his dedication to jihad and the upholding of Sunni Islam.55 Indeed, nearly half of the thirty-eight preserved inscriptions of Nur al-Din call him the fighter of jihad (al-mujahid). This noteworthy shift in the kind of titles used to describe Nur al-Din reflects his successes against the Franks in the preceding years, the first four of his rule (1146–50).56 The titles accorded to him reflect a close and harmonious relationship with the Sunni caliph at Baghdad. They also reveal his desire to be a good Muslim ruler and to be viewed as such – by his dispensing of Islamic justice, by his personal piety and by his prosecution of jihad against the enemies of Islam.
Figure 3.18 Funerary madrasa of Nur al-Din, plan, 567/1172, Damascus, Syria
Figure 3.19 Funerary madrasa of Nur al-Din, muqarnas dome, 567/1172, Damascus, Syria
Figure 3.20 Jami‘ al-Nuri, alabaster mihrab in courtyard, early thirteenth century, Mosul, Iraq
Plate 3.13 Jami‘ al-Nuri, inscription on outer north wall, after 552/1157, probably 558/1162–3 and later, Hama, Syria
Plate 3.14 Jami‘ al-Nuri, inscription on outer north wall, detail with the name of Nur al-Din, after 552/1157, probably 558/1162–3 and later, Hama, Syria
Plate 3.15 Jami‘ al-Nuri, inscription on outer north wall, detail with the date, after 552/1157, probably 558/1162–3 and later, Hama, Syria
Figure 3.21 Jami‘ al-Nuri, exterior, inscription on north wall, detail, probably 558/1162–3 and later, Hama, Syria
One facet of the ideological revival in the time of Nur al-Din was his establishment of a ‘House of Justice’ (Dar al-‘adl) in Damascus around the year 1163. Others like it were constructed later, for example in Aleppo by one of Saladin’s sons and in Cairo by Saladin’s brother, al-Kamil; but the timing of this particular building was not a coincidence. Indeed, this monument was part of the prevailing atmosphere of the Counter-Crusade in which the ruler used a range of propaganda tools to gain popular support and approbation. As Rabbat argues, the struggle between Muslims and Crusaders generated ‘a combative reaction among the religious intelligentsia in the Islamic Orient’ and it made rulers aware of their religious obligations. Thus, in the House of Justice, Nur al-Din, or one of his appointed deputies, would preside over sessions in which his subjects could bring their grievances to be redressed.57 According to Ibn al-Athir: ‘He [Nur al-Din] used to sit [in the House of Justice] two days a week, with the judge and legists.’58
Indeed, a veritable spate of religious monuments was erected in the middle of the twelfth century in Syria – the Jami‘ al-Nuri in Hama, dated 558/1162–3, teaching colleges such as the Madrasa al-Shu’aybiyya created in 545/1159 in Aleppo (forty-two were built in the time of Nur al-Din, half of them sponsored by him personally), Sufi cloisters, a hospital (the famous Bimaristan Nur al-Din dated 549/1154—5) (plates 3.16, 3.17, 3.18, 3.19, 3.20 and colour plate 14) the Dar al-hadith (the House of Hadith Scholarship) (figure 3.29) – and together they testify to a profound Sunni revival during the rule of Nur al-Din. It was typical that Nur al-Din took the trouble to attend sessions in the Dar al-hadith in person. This building was created in 566/1170 to enhance his own credentials as a pious Sunni ruler.59 Between 560/1165 and 566/1170 Nur al-Din sponsored the building of a number of minarets in Syria – in Damascus and al-Raqqa amongst other places (cf. plate 3.21) – and in Iraq (cf. plate 5.1). These monuments, towering over the cities and fortresses, had a strong propaganda message testifying to the triumph of Islam. Several serious earthquakes in Syria had damaged or destroyed its buildings. Nur al-Din saw it as his duty to rebuild them, taking seriously the public duty of the ruler to build in the name of Islam, despite the great costs that such a building programme m
ust have incurred.
Figure 3.22 Jami‘ al-Nuri, mihrab with frieze depicting real and fabulous creatures, early thirteenth century, Hama, Syria
Figure 3.23 Funerary madrasa of Nur al-Din, section of the muqarnas dome, 567/1172, Damascus, Syria
Figure 3.24 Jami‘ al-Nuri, plan, from 5s8hı62–3, Hama, Syria
Thus we see from the sheer number of religious monuments built under the patronage of Nur al-Din, and by the nature of the monumental inscriptions carved in his name by the local craftsmen under the guidance of the ‘ulama’, that already in his own lifetime Nur al-Din was perceived (or was keen to be perceived) as a warrior for jihad and a model Sunni Muslim ruler. Ibn al-Athir sums up the building activities of Nur al-Din, mentioning that he built the walls ‘of all the cities and citadels of Syria’, mosques, hospitals, caravanserais, towers, Sufi cloisters and orphanages.60 Nur al-Din visited Medina in 556/1161 on the pilgrimage and on that occasion he rebuilt its walls.61
Figure 3.25 Maristan (hospital) of Nur al-Din, section of portal dome, 549/1154, Damascus, Syria
Figure 3.26 Maristan (hospital) of Nur al-Din, plan, 549/1154, Damascus, Syria
Unlike monumental epigraphy, the titles which appear in coinage must perforce be brief since the space available is very small. It is all the more noteworthy therefore that many of the extant coins which bear the name of Nur al-Din give him the title ‘the just prince’ (al-malik al-‘adil) (figure 3.27).62 Unlike monumental inscriptions which are in situ, those coins often travelled far and wide, carrying with them the reputation of Nur al-Din as a ruler who above all else dispensed Islamic justice.
It was during the career of Nur al-Din, then, the first major Muslim leader against the Franks, that the concept of jihad as a rallying-cry for the Muslims gathered real momentum and that the alliance between the religious classes and the military leadership became meaningful. It is during his rule that the key elements in Muslim jihad propaganda can be clearly identified. Ideally, spiritual and public jihad combine in the person of the ruler, and this is certainly the way in which Nur al-Din is presented in the Islamic sources. But the problem of the historical veracity of this image cannot really be resolved satisfactorily.
Figure 3.27 Coin of Nur al-Din, twelfth century, Syria
Plate 3.16 Maristan of Nur al-Din, exterior of muqarnas dome, 549/1154, Damascus, Syria
The Image of Nur al-Din in the Written Sources
According to Elisseeff, whose three-volume work on Nur al-Din is widely regarded as a major scholarly contribution, the first years of the career of Nur al-Din were devoted to the unification of Syria and only when he had achieved this did he turn his attention to the Franks.63 This gives a favourable interpretation of the military activities of Nur al-Din and suggests that from the outset he had an overall strategy in mind, consisting of Muslim unification followed by jihad against the Franks.
Such an interpretation is, however, too pat. It is far more likely that Nur al-Din began his career (and maybe even continued it) by playing the same game of power politics in the Near East as his ruthless father, Zengi, had done. Yet the Islamic sources give the activities of Nur al-Din far more of an Islamic coating than those of his father and it is naturally difficult to determine how valid this interpretation is. Are the Islamic historians, who of course write with hindsight, being swayed in the very presentation of events by their knowledge of what was to come?
Various landmarks in the career of Nur al-Din are invested with didactic significance in the Muslim sources as he is shown as changing from a military warlord to a pious Sunni Muslim ruler. The same image is given of Saladin, as we shall see, and so this process may well be stereotypical and a stock theme of Muslim historiography.
How, then, do the sources handle this issue? According to them, signs of God’s favour could be discerned in the early stages of the career of Nur al-Din and the contemporary Damascene chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi attributes to Nur al-Din lofty religious motives for his actions:
I seek nothing but the good of the Muslims and to make war against the Franks … If … we aid one another in waging the Holy War, and matters are arranged harmoniously and with a single eye to the good, my desire and purpose will be fully achieved.64
Of course, Ibn al-Qalanisi may well be guilty of partiality, but he writes here with an ardour notably absent from his descriptions of the activities of Zengi. A key moment may well have been the victory of Nur al-Din against Raymond of Antioch at the battle of Inab in Safar 544/June 1149. According to Elisseeff, after his capture of Damascus in 549/1154, Nur al-Din took each step ‘in the name of jihad against the Crusaders and to help the revitalisation of Sunni Islam’.65 This reverential tone is taken directly from the chroniclers themselves. Ibn al-‘Adim remarks, probably more out of piety than conviction, that ‘from this point on Nur al-Din dedicated himself to jihad.66
Plate 3.17 Maristan of Nur al-Din, interior, painted inscription, 549/1154, Damascus, Syria
Plate 3.18 Maris tan of Nur al-Din, interior, detail of muqarnas vaulting in arch, 549/1154, Damascus, Syria
But adversity, not success, was to prove a far more skilful instructor for Nur al-Din on his path to personal religious piety and to acceptance by the religious classes as a good Sunni ruler. Two bouts of serious illness, in Ramadan 552/October 1157 and Dhu’l-hijja 553/January 1159, may well have caused Nur al-Din to think about the religious dimension of his political activities as well as the salvation of his own soul. Significantly, he took time off in 556/1161 to perform the Pilgrimage to Mecca. But the most important turning-point in the religious development of Nur al-Din seems to have been the humiliating defeat he suffered at the hands of the Franks in 558/1163 on the plain of al-Buqay’a. This defeat had a profound effect, according to the sources, on the personal life and policies of Nur al-Din. Henceforth, he adopted a life of piety and asceticism, a stance which was to gain him the staunch respect of the religious classes in Syria and the loyalty of the population. Ibn al-‘Adim mentions an episode which seems to have sharpened his religious resolve still further.67 A man called Burhan al-Din al-Balkhi said to Nur al-Din: ‘Do you want to celebrate victory whilst in your camp there are intoxicating drinks and drums and wind-instruments? No, by God!’ (cf. figure 3.28)
According to the story, Nur al-Din was deeply affected by these reproaches and he vowed repentance. He changed his grand clothing for the rough garments of the Sufi, he let it be known that he would henceforth combine a desire to undertake personal spiritual jihad with prosecuting public jihad against the Franks and he summoned other Muslim princes to rally to him in support of jihad. Such didactic stories are common in medieval Islamic historical writings: intoxicating drinks and musical instruments denote laxity in religious observances (figures 6.31, 6.69). But the timing of this anecdote in Ibn al-‘Adim’s account may be significant.
Figure 3.28 Man holding a wind instrument, ink drawing on paper, twelfth century, Egypt
Saladin’s future adviser and friend, ‘Imad al-Din al-Isfahani arrived in Damascus and joined the service of Nur al-Din in 562/1166–7. He describes his new master as ‘the most chaste, pious, sagacious, pure and virtuous of kings’ and he praises him for restoring ‘the splendour of Islam to the land of Syria’.68 Ibn al-Athir writes a very lengthy obituary of Nur al-Din in his history of the Zengid dynasty, entitled the History of the Atabegs of Mosul.69 It is unashamedly panegyrical in tone:
Plate 3.19 Maristan of Nur al-Din, detail of portal, 549/1154, Damascus, Syria
Plate 3.20 Maristan of Nur al-Din, portal, 549/1154, Damascus, Syria
(Creswell Photographic Archive, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, neg. C. 5497)
Figure 3.29 Dar al-Hadith al-Nuriyya, plan, before 569/1174, Damascus, Syria
I have read the histories of early kings before Islam, and in Islam until these time of ours, and I have not seen after the Rightly Guided caliphs and ‘Umar b.’Abd al-‘Aziz a king of better conduct than the just king Nur al-Din.70
Such high praise, liken
ing Nur al-Din to those held in Islam to have been the most pious and just caliphs, is followed up in the obituary by an enumeration of the virtues of Nur al-Din. It is noteworthy, too, that in conformity with the practice of contemporary public inscriptions, he chooses, from all possible adjectives, the epithet ‘just’ (‘adil) to sum up Nur al-Din.
The same laudatory stance towards Nur al-Din is shown by the later writer Abu Shama (d. 665/1258). He describes Nur al-Din as the most zealous in raiding against the Franks,71 and he stresses his orthodoxy, his justice, his devotion to jihad and his personal piety:
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