Zengi

Imad ad-Din Zengi (also Zangi or Zengui ; Arabic عماد الدين زنكي, DMG ʿImād ad-Dīn Zangī ; * 1087 ; † 14. September 1146 in qal'at ja'bar / northern Syria) was since 1127 the atabeg (ie a royal tutor ) of Mosul , the founder of Zengids dynasty and a well-known opponent of the Crusaders (taking Edessa in 1144).

Life

Zengi was the son of Aq Sunqur al-Hajjib , a Turkish Ghulam commander of the Seljuk Sultan Malik-Shah I (r. 1072-1092).

He was originally in the service of Qasim ad-Daula Aq Sunqur al-Bursuqi (murdered 1126), the governor of Mosul and Atabeg of the Seljuk prince Masud . After he had been governor of Wasit and Basra for a while , the Seljuk Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1118–1131) made him governor of Mosul after the death of Izz ad-Din Masud al-Bursuqi (the son of the previous employer) in 1127 and at the same time to the Atabeg. Zengi quickly subordinated himself to the various local rulers of the Jazira and Diyarbakir districts.

Zengi's government was characterized by constant small wars. Already in June 1128 he took over Aleppo , about which three Muslim rulers were fighting: Kotba Ali, a son of Ridwan and a son of Ilghazi . This concentration of power allowed him to become the dangerous adversary of the Crusaders, as he is celebrated by Sunni historiography.

Nevertheless, he was always an opponent of the Abbasid - caliphs who then their power in Iraq to consolidate investigated. In 1132 he attacked the caliph al-Mustarschid and his ally, the Seljuk prince Seljuk ibn Muhammad, was defeated, but escaped because Nadschm ad-Din Ayyub (the father of Saladin ) saved his life at Tikrit . In June 1132 he attacked Baghdad again in league with the Mazyadid ruler Dubai II and was defeated again. In the following year, 1133, al-Mustarschid appeared with a large army (including Kurdish emirs) outside Mosul, but Zengi escaped and after three months forced him to retreat with a guerrilla war.

In his capacity as Atabeg, Zengi had two sons of Sultan Mahmud named Alp-Arslan (also known as al-Chafaji ) and Farruch-Shah under his control. He officiated in their name and could thus also represent a threat to the new Sultan Masud (r. 1134–1152). The Sultan was well aware of the situation and prepared (as well as Zengi himself) in 1143/44 for a war, which however never came. Zengi paid small transfer fees, held his own son hostage and waited for the sultan's death while Masud looked after more dangerous emirs.

After the fundamental clarification of the political situation of his two overlords in the east, ie the caliph and the Seljuk sultan, Zengi had the opportunity to turn against rival Islamic and Christian rulers in the southwest from around 1135 onwards. Zengi was there mainly in conflict with the Burids of Damascus , took advantage of their internal disputes and was able to take the princely widow Zumurrud and the city of Homs (as " dowry ") from them in June 1138 with military pressure . In the same year, the Byzantine Emperor John II (ruled 1118–1143) besieged Aleppo after he had already brought the Principality of Antioch under his control. The siege, however, was unsuccessful. In 1139 Zengi turned his attention (again) to Damascus, which was allied with the Kingdom of Jerusalem against him. His siege failed, however, because the old Mamlukenführer Unur (d. 1149), the former governor of Homs, was not prepared to give up.

After Joscelin II , ruler of the county of Edessa, was absent on a campaign in 1144, Zengi besieged Edessa, the weakest of the Crusader states , and captured it on December 24, 1144 (the citadel fell on December 26). There was a massacre of the civilian population in which neither old people nor children were spared. This event led to the unsuccessful Second Crusade and is rated in later Islamic chronicles as the beginning of jihad against the crusaders.

While Zengi was continuing his attempts to conquer Damascus, he was murdered on the night of September 14, 1146 during the siege of Qalʿat Jaʿbar by a Frankish eunuch whom he had previously reprimanded for drinking wine. In Mosul he was succeeded by his eldest son Saif ad-Din Ghazi I , and in Aleppo by his second son Nur ad-Din .

According to a crusader legend, Zengi's mother was Ida of Austria , who was also the mother of Leopold III. from Austria was. Ida is said to have been kidnapped and taken to a harem during the 1101 Crusade .

Remarks

1. ↑ Cambridge History of Iran, p. 126
2. ↑ Thomas S. Asbridge: The Crusades . 7th edition. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 2016, ISBN 978-3-608-94921-6 , pp. 215 .

literature

• Steven Runciman : A History of the Crusades . Volume 2: The Kingdom of Jerusalem. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge et al. 1952.

Web links

• Imad ad-Din Zengi at Mittelalter-genealogie.de

predecessor	Office	successor
---	Atabeg of Aleppo 1128–1146	Ad-Din only
---	Atabeg of Mosul 1127–1146	Saif ad-Din Ghazi I.