Still only in his early twenties, Baldwin III of Jerusalem was now charged with the rule of all three of the surviving crusader states. To make matters worse his relationship with his mother Melisende was crumbling. Together they had exercised joint rule of Jerusalem since 1145 (when the boy king reached his majority at the age of fifteen), and in the beginning the queen’s wisdom and experience had been a welcome source of security and continuity. But as Baldwin grew into adulthood, his mother’s presence at his side began to feel more stifling than reassuring. Melisende, for her part, had no intention of relinquishing power and still enjoyed widespread support within the realm. From 1149 onwards, relations between the two co-rulers soured, and by 1152 Latin Palestine was almost torn asunder by civil war. Ultimately, Baldwin was forced to drive Melisende from her lands in Nablus and then to actually besiege the queen in the Holy City itself to force her abdication and assert his own right to independent rule.

In spite of the endemic weakness of his supposed enemy, Nur al-Din did little to pursue directly the interests of the jihad against the Christians. Instead, he continued to direct the bulk of his energy and resources towards the seizure of Damascus. Those seeking to promote Nur al-Din as a hero of Islamic holy war–from medieval Muslim chroniclers to modern historians–have argued that this dogged focus upon the subjection of Syria was but a means to an end; that only by preventing Damascus from falling into Christian hands and uniting Islam could the lord of Aleppo eventually hope to achieve victory in the greater struggle against the Franks.¹⁴ Zangi had long eyed the prize of Damascus, but was often drawn away by the affairs of Mesopotamia. For the next five years, Nur al-Din pursued this quarry with greater determination, bringing a nuanced array of tactics to bear. His father’s primary weapons had always been intimidation and fear. He had butchered the populace of Baalbek after promising to spare their lives if they surrendered, in the vain hope of terrifying Damascus into submission. Nur al-Din had perhaps learned the lesson of this failure. He adopted a new approach, concerning himself with the battle for hearts and minds, as well as the force of arms.

Power in Damascus now lay in the hands of another member of the faltering Burid dynasty, Abaq, and his inner circle of advisers, but their grip over the city was far from secure. In April 1150 Nur al-Din responded to news of Latin incursions into the Hauran, the frontier zone between Jerusalem and Damascus, by calling upon Abaq to join him in repelling the Franks. Nur al-Din then marched his own army into southern Syria, advancing beyond Baalbek. Just as he had expected, Abaq prevaricated with ‘specious arguments and dissimulation’, while simultaneously dispatching envoys to forge a new pact with King Baldwin III.

Now camped north of Damascus, Nur al-Din took great care to ensure the continued discipline of his troops, preventing them ‘from plundering and doing injury in the villages’, even as he ratcheted up the diplomatic pressure on Abaq. Messages arrived in Damascus chiding the Burid ruler for turning to the Franks and for paying them tribute monies stolen from ‘the poor and weak among [the Damascenes]’. Nur al-Din assured Abaq that he had no intention of attacking the city, but rather that he had been endowed by Allah with power and resources ‘in order to bring help to the Muslims and to engage in the holy war against the polytheists’–to which Abaq replied bluntly that ‘there is nothing between us except the sword’. Nur al-Din’s firm but restrained approach seems, nonetheless, to have borne fruit, as public opinion inside Damascus began to turn in his favour. One Muslim resident even noted that ‘prayers were continually being offered up for him by the people of Damascus’.

Nur al-Din backed away from this initial exchange, having made only relatively meagre gains. For all his brave posturing, Abaq eventually agreed to a renewed truce with Aleppo, officially acknowledging Nur al-Din as suzerain and ordering his name to be recited from the pulpit during Friday prayer and placed on Damascene coins. Symbolic as these gestures may have been, the piecemeal work of subduing Damascus with a minimum of bloodshed had begun. Over the next few years Nur al-Din maintained diplomatic and military pressure on the Burids while still seeking to avoid a direct assault on their city. His ‘scrupulous aversion to the slaying of Muslims’ continued to be noted by those living in Damascus, and by 1151 many were rejecting Abaq’s calls to muster against the Aleppans.

Around this time, Shirkuh ibn Shadi’s brother, Ayyub, began to act as Nur al-Din’s agent within the city. Ayyub had transferred allegiance to the Burid dynasty in 1146, but he now decided, with familiar political flexibility, to return to the Zangid fold, becoming a valuable voice of support within the Damascene court, while also winning over the local militias. By slow steps, Nur al-Din was transforming Damascus into a client-state. In October 1151 Abaq actually travelled north to Aleppo to declare his loyalty, tacitly acknowledging subjection in the hope of staving off full conquest. Nur al-Din merely used this as an excuse to employ even more devious and divisive propaganda–repeatedly writing, in the guise of a concerned overlord, to warn Abaq that various members of his own Damascene court were contacting Aleppo to plot Damascus’ surrender.

In winter 1153–4, Nur al-Din finally intensified his campaign, moving to cut off northern grain shipments to Damascus. Food shortages soon took hold. In the spring, with internal discontent swelling, he sent an advance force south under Shirkuh and then in late April 1154 closed on the city in person. In the end, no real attack was necessary. A Jewish woman reportedly lowered a rope over the walls, allowing some Aleppan troops to mount the eastern battlements and to raise Nur al-Din’s standard. As Abaq fled in horror to the citadel, the people of Damascus threw open the city’s gates, offering their unconditional surrender.

Patience and restraint had brought Nur al-Din control of the historic seat of Muslim power–he now took care to maintain those principles. Abaq, in spite of fears, was treated with equanimity and rewarded with the fiefdom of Homs in return for relinquishing control of Damascus; he later moved to Iraq. An abundance of food started flowing into the city and Nur al-Din’s generosity was affirmed by the ‘abolition of duties on the melon market and the vegetable market’.

Nur al-Din’s conquest of Damascus in 1154 was a striking achievement. With this act, he emerged from his father’s shadow, succeeding where Zangi had repeatedly failed. Nur al-Din could now claim dominion over almost all Muslim Syria; for the first time since the crusades began, Aleppo and Damascus were united. And all this had been achieved without the gratuitous shedding of Muslim blood.

Damascus’ subjugation has often been depicted as one of the crowning glories of Nur al-Din’s career. Conscious himself of its significance, he began to make extensive use of the title al-Malik al ‘Adil (The Just King). The notion also gained currency that his overthrow of another Islamic polity was a necessary precursor to the waging of holy war against the Franks. One Aleppan chronicler later wrote that ‘from this point forward, Nur al-Din dedicated himself to jihad’.

This view of events does not bear close scrutiny. Nur al-Din probably did have a real aversion to killing fellow Muslims, but he also seems to have been keenly aware of his clemency’s value in practical and propaganda terms. More importantly, despite having drawn upon anti-Latin sentiment to legitimise and empower his campaign against Burid Damascus, Nur al-Din launched no new jihadi offensive after 1154. The rhetoric had suggested that, with the kingdom of Jerusalem before him, the emir would unleash a wave of scalding aggression against the Franks. In fact, contemporary Arabic testimony reveals that Nur al-Din actually followed up his occupation of Damascus by agreeing new peace treaties with Latin Palestine. On 28 May 1155, ‘terms of truce were agreed’ with Jerusalem for one year. In November 1156 the pact was renewed for another year, this time with the stipulation ‘that the tribute paid to [the Franks] from Damascus should be 8,000 dinars of Tyre’. Far from being focused upon holy war after 1154, Nur al-Din actually spent most of his time acquiring more Muslim-held territory–subjugating Baalbek and capitalising upon the death of Ma‘sud, the Seljuq sultan of Anatolia, to absorb lands in the north. The treaties and tribute payments to the Christians, so disparaged in years gone by, now served to secure Nur al-Din’s Damascene lands.¹⁵