Zengid dynasty

The Zengid dynasty (Arabic: الدولة الزنكية romanized: al-Dawla al-Zinkia) was a Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkoman origin, which ruled parts of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia on behalf of the Seljuk Empire and eventually seized control of Egypt in 1169. In 1174 the Zengid state extended from Tripoli to Hamadan and from Yemen to Sivas. The dynasty was founded by Imad ad-Din Zengi. History Zengi, son of Aq Sunqur al-Hajib, became the Seljuk atabeg of Mosul in 1127. He quickly became the chief Turkic potentate in Northern Syria and Iraq, taking Aleppo from the squabbling Artuqids in 1128 and capturing the County of Edessa from the Crusaders after the siege of Edessa in 1144. This latter feat made Zengi a hero in the Muslim world, but he was assassinated by a slave two years later, in 1146. On Zengi's death, his territories were divided, with Mosul and his lands in Iraq going to his eldest son Saif ad-Din Ghazi I, and Aleppo and Edessa falling to his second son, Nur ad-Din, atabeg of Aleppo. Nur ad-Din proved to be as competent as his father. In 1149, he defeated Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch, at the battle of Inab, and the next year conquered the remnants of the County of Edessa west of the Euphrates. In 1154, he capped off these successes by his capture of Damascus from the Burid dynasty that ruled it. Now ruling from Damascus, Nur ad-Din's success continued. Another Prince of Antioch, Raynald of Châtillon was captured, and the territories of the Principality of Antioch were greatly reduced. In the 1160s, Nur ad-Din's attention was mostly held by a competition with the King of Jerusalem, Amalric of Jerusalem, for control of the Fatimid Caliphate. From 1163 to 1169 Shirkuh took part in a series of campaigns against Fatimid Egypt, in 1169 he lured the vizier into an ambush and killed him after which he seized Egypt in the name of his master Nur ad-Din therefore bringing Egypt under formal Zengid dominion.