Nur al-Din came to power aged around twenty-eight. He was said to have been ‘a tall, swarthy man with a beard but no moustache, a fine forehead and a pleasant appearance enhanced by beautiful, melting eyes’. In time he would attain power to eclipse even that held by his father, emerging as Latin Christendom’s most feared and respected Muslim adversary in the Near East–a ruler who nurtured and re-energised the cause of Islamic holy war. Even William of Tyre was later moved to describe him as ‘a wise and prudent man and, according to the superstitious traditions of his people, one who feared God’. But in 1146, the emir’s position was precarious and the task set before him all but insurmountable.³

In the wake of Zangi’s assassination, Syria was thrown into disarray. The brutal effectiveness of the atabeg’s despotism now became apparent as lawlessness broke out across large swathes of the Muslim Levant. Even a Damascene contemporary acknowledged that ‘all the towns were in confusion, the roads became unsafe, after enjoying a grateful period of security’. With Nur al-Din’s right and ability to rule as yet unproven, a number of Zangi’s loyal lieutenants realigned their interests. Under pressure from Unur, the de facto ruler of Damascus, the Kurdish warlord Ayyub ibn Shadi surrendered Baalbek and moved to the southern Syrian capital. Nur al-Din retained the support of Aleppo’s Zangid governor, Sawar, and the backing of Ayyub’s brother, Shirkuh, but on balance the young emir’s prospects for success, or even survival, were slim.

As emir of Aleppo, Nur al-Din found himself in control of one of the great cities of the Near East. Already in the twelfth century Aleppo had an almost unimaginably ancient history–the site of human settlement for at least seven thousand years. In physical terms, the metropolis governed by Nur al-Din from 1146 was dominated by an impressive walled citadel, rising out of the heart of the city, atop a steep-sided, 200-foot-high natural hill. One near-contemporary visitor noted that this ‘fortress is renowned for its impregnability and, from far distance seen for its great height, is without like or match among castles’–even today it dominates the modern city. Aleppo’s Great Mosque, a short distance to the west, was founded around 715 under the Umayyads, to which the Seljuqs had added a striking square minaret in the late eleventh century. The city was also a renowned commercial hub, home to a network of covered souqs (markets). Aleppo may not have been Syria’s first city in the twelfth century, but it was a centre of political, military and economic power–as such it offered Nur al-Din a vital platform upon which to build his career.⁴

In 1146, amidst the chaotic vacuum of power that followed Zangi’s murder, Nur al-Din needed to assert his authority. An opportunity to do just this soon presented itself, as urgent news of a sudden crisis arrived. The Frankish count of Edessa, Joscelin II, was making a desperate attempt to recover his capital. Leading a rapidly assembled force, he had marched on the city in October 1146 and, with the collusion of its native Christian population, breached Edessa’s outer defences by night. The Muslim garrison fled to the heavily fortified citadel and were now closely besieged.

Nur al-Din reacted with urgent resolution, determined to prevent Edessa’s loss to the Franks and to forestall any possibility of westward expansion by his brother Saif al-Din. Mustering thousands of Aleppan troops and Turcoman warriors, the emir prosecuted a lightning forced march through day and night, travelling at such an intense pace ‘that [the Muslims’] horses dropped by the roadsides from fatigue’. This speed paid off. Lacking the manpower and siege engines to overcome the citadel, Joscelin’s troops were still ranged within the lower city when Nur al-Din arrived. Trapped between two forces, the count immediately abandoned the city, escaping at the cost of heavy Latin losses. With Edessa back in his possession, the emir chose to make a blunt demonstration of his ruthless will. Two years earlier, Zangi had spared the city’s eastern Christians; now, as punishment for their ‘connivance’ with the Franks, his son and heir scourged Edessa of their presence. All males were killed, women and children enslaved. One Muslim chronicler remarked that ‘the sword blotted out the existence of all the Christians’, while a shocked Syrian Christian described how, in the aftermath of this massacre, the city ‘was deserted of life: an appalling vision, enveloped in a black cloud, drunk with blood, infected by the cadavers of its sons and daughters’. The once vibrant metropolis remained a desolate backwater for centuries to come.⁵

Grim as its impact was in Edessa, Nur al-Din’s show of strength helped to cement his rule over Aleppo. On this occasion, the emir had followed his father’s lead in relying upon brute force and fear to impose his authority. Over time, however, Nur al-Din proved capable of employing more subtle modes of governance–from consensual politics to the shaping of public opinion–alongside steely resolve. Like Zangi, he aspired to unite Aleppo and Damascus, but to begin with, at least, the emir cultivated an atmosphere of renewed cooperation with his southern Syrian neighbour. A marriage alliance was arranged between Nur al-Din and Unur of Damascus’ daughter, Ismat. The Aleppan emir also made the magnanimous gesture of releasing a slave girl captured by Zangi at Baalbek in 1138, who had once been Unur’s lover. In the opinion of one Muslim chronicler, ‘this was the most important reason for the friendship between [Nur al-Din and the Damascene]’.

With the rebalancing of power that followed Zangi’s death, Aleppo and Damascus were feeling their way towards a new relationship. No longer fearful of imminent Zangid invasion, Unur’s authority was rejuvenated, and he began to sever his ties as a client ruler of the Franks. When one of his dependants, Altuntash of Bosra, sought to form a breakaway alliance with the kingdom of Jerusalem in spring 1147, Unur moved to intervene. Nur al-Din came south to lend support and together the two beat back a Latin attempt to occupy Bosra. This notable success earned Unur recognition from the rival caliphs of Baghdad and Cairo, with both sending robes of honour and diplomas of investiture. Against this backdrop, Damascus, rather than Aleppo, appeared in 1147 to be the dominant Syrian Muslim polity.

Nur al-Din spent that summer consolidating his position in the north and campaigning on the western border zone with Antioch. Chilling news then put the emir on the defensive. An ‘innumerable’ Latin army was reportedly ‘making for the land of Islam’ it was said that so many Christians had joined the huge force that the West had been left empty and undefended. Alarmed by these tidings, Aleppo, and all its Muslim neighbours, sought to prepare for the Second Crusade, and the coming of a new war.⁶

COUNTERING THE CRUSADE

Over the next six months, reports of the German and French crusaders’ experiences gradually filtered back to the Near East. One Damascene heard that ‘a vast number of them perished’ in Asia Minor, through ‘killing, disease and hunger’, and by early 1148 it was apparent that Ma‘sud, the Seljuq sultan of Anatolia, had inflicted crippling losses upon the Franks. For Nur al-Din and Unur, anxiously waiting in Aleppo and Damascus, these tidings must have been a welcome, but surprising, relief. Their Turkish neighbours to the north-west–more often rivals than allies over recent decades–had blunted the Christian crusade even before it reached the Levant.

Even so, the danger was not past. That spring, Latin survivors (still numbering in their thousands) began to arrive in the ports of Syria and Palestine. The question now was, where would they strike? Nur al-Din readied Aleppo for an attack and his brother, Saif al-Din, brought reinforcements from Mosul later that summer. Yet against expectations the Frankish offensive, when it finally came in July 1148, was launched to the south against Damascus.