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The Zangids

521–649/1127–1251

Jazīra and Syria

1. The main line in Mosul and Aleppo

2. The line in Damascus and then Aleppo

3. The line in Sinjār

4. The line in Jazīra

5. The line in Shahrazūr

Zangī was the son of Aq Sunqur, who was a Turkish slave commander of the Great Seljuq Sultan Malik Shāh and governor of Aleppo from 479/1086 to 487/1094 (the origin of the name Zangī is unclear; an obvious meaning would be ‘black African’, possibly relating to a swarthy complexion, but this would be unusual for a Turk). In 521/1127, Sultan Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad appointed Zangī governor of Mosul and Atabeg of his two sons. The unsettled conditions within the Seljuq sultanate of the west, and the appearance of other, semi-independent Atabeg and Turkish principalities, such as those of the Börids and the Artuqids (see above, no. 92, and below, no. 96), facilitated the rise of the Zangids. From his base at Mosul, Zangī was well placed for expansion westwards through Jazīra into Syria and northwards into eastern Anatolia and Kurdistan. At various times, he defied the Seljuq sultan and clashed with the local Arab and Türkmen amīrs. He also fought the Byzantines and Franks, and his capture in 539/1144 of Edessa or Urfa from Count Jocelyn II, which spelt the end of the Crusader County of Edessa, made him a hero of the Sunnī world.

When Zangī died, his dominions were divided between his sons Sayf al-Dīn Ghāzī I, the elder, who inherited Mosul and its dependencies Sinjār, Irbil and Jazīra, and Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd, who took over Zangī’s Syrian conquests. Later, a third branch of the family ruled in Sinjār for some fifty years, a fourth line continued in Jazīra after Mas‘ūd b. Mawdūd in Mawṣil had become an Ayyūbid vassal (see below), while a fifth line ruled briefly at Shahrazūr in Kurdistan. Nūr al-Dīn’s policy in Syria and Palestine against the Crusaders and the declining Fāṭimids paved the way for Saladin’s career there and for the constituting of the Ayyūbid empire. The Syrian branch of the Zangids was later absorbed by the Mosul one, and the Zangids then inevitably came up against the Ayyūbids, who were pursuing an expansionist policy in Jazīra and Diyārbakr. Saladin twice failed to capture Mosul in 578/1182 and 581/1185, but Mas‘ūd I b. Mawdūd was compelled to make terms and to recognise the Ayyūbid as his suzerain.

The end of the Zangīds came with the ascendancy in Mosul of Badr al-Dīn Lu’lu’, the former slave of Arslan Shāh II b. Mas‘ūd II, who after that ruler’s death became regent for the principality. When the last Zangīd Maḥmūd b. Mas‘ūd II died in 631/1234, probably murdered, Lu’lu’ became Atabeg of Mosul, and he and his sons formed a short-lived line there (see below, no. 95) until the advent of Hülegü’s Mongols.

Justi, 461; Lane-Poole, 162–4; Sachau, 27 no. 71; Zambaur, 226–7; Album, 40–1.

EI² ‘Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Zankī’ (N. Elisséeff).

Elisséeff, Nūr al-Dīn, un grand prince musulman de Syrie au temps des Croisades (511–569 H./1118–1174), Damascus 1967.

Ç. Alptekin, The Reign of Zangi (521–541/1127–1146), Erzurum 1978.

D. Patton, Badr al-Dīn Lu’lu’, Atabeg of Mosul, 1211–1259, Seattle and London 1991.

W. F. Spengler and W. G. Sayles, Turkoman Figural Bronze Coins and their Iconography. II. The Zengids, Lodi WI 1996.