From the late 1150s onwards, however, these public works seem to have been increasingly imbued with a devotional dimension; one inspired by and/or designed to aver Nur al-Din’s deepening sense of personal piety and his preoccupation with Sunni orthodoxy. In 1163 he financed the building of a new House of Justice, where he later sat for two days each week to hear the grievances of his subjects. This was followed by the construction of the Dar al-hadith al-Nuriyya–a new centre dedicated to the study of the life and traditions associated with Muhammad–headed by Nur al-Din’s close friend, the renowned scholar Ibn ‘Asakir, which the emir attended in person.

To promote Damascus as a hub of Sunni Islam, Nur al-Din built a new suburb, to the west of the city, to house pilgrims en route to Mecca, and in 1159 he founded the town of al-Salihiyya, just over one mile to the north, to shelter refugees from Palestine. Nur al-Din’s Damascene court soon drew in experts in the fields of governance, law and warfare from across the Muslim world. Among them was the Persian intellectual Imad al-Din al-Isfahani, who would later write some of the most illuminating and lyrical Arabic histories of this era. Educated in Baghdad, he joined the emir as a katib (secretary/scholar) in 1167, later describing his new patron as ‘the most chaste, pious, sagacious, pure and virtuous of kings’.

Throughout this period, Nur al-Din projected an image of himself as a devoted Muslim, the reviver of Sunni law and orthodoxy. Revealingly, the most potent and portable propaganda tool available to Nur al-Din–the coins he issued–bore the inscription ‘The Just King’. From the early 1160s, however, he appears to have placed greater emphasis upon the role of jihad in his rule, proclaiming his virtues as a heroic mujahid in inscriptions adorning public monuments. The pre-eminent position of Jerusalem within the framework of jihad ideology also began to crystallise in this period. The emir’s colleague Ibn ‘Asakir helped to revitalise the tradition of writing texts extolling the Holy City’s virtues and took to reciting these works to large public gatherings in Damascus. Poets in Nur al-Din’s court composed widely disseminated works stressing the need not only to attack the Latins but also to reconquer Islam’s third city. One wrote encouraging his patron to wage war on the Franks ‘until you see Jesus fleeing from Jerusalem’. Ibn al-Qaysarani, who had also served Zangi, announced his wish that ‘the city of Jerusalem be purified by the shedding of blood’, proclaiming that ‘Nur al-Din is as strong as ever and the iron of his lance is directed at the Aqsa.’ The emir himself wrote to the caliph in Baghdad of his desire ‘to banish the worshippers of the Cross from the Aqsa mosque’.

One further piece of evidence attests to Jerusalem’s increasingly central role, both within the ideology propagated by Nur al-Din and, perhaps, within his own heartfelt ambitions. In 1168–9, he commissioned the master carpenter al-Akharini to carve a fabulously ornate minbar (wooden pulpit) that the emir hoped to place in the Aqsa mosque once the Holy City was retaken. Some years later, the Iberian Muslim traveller Ibn Jubayr remarked on the pulpit’s extraordinary beauty when he passed through the Levant, asserting that its grandeur was unrivalled in the medieval world. This minbar was undoubtedly intended as a potent and public declaration of intent, emblazoned as it was with the description of the emir as ‘the fighter of jihad in His path, the one who defends [the frontiers] against the enemies of His religion, the just king, Nur al-Din, the pillar of Islam and the Muslims, the dispenser of justice’. Yet, in some respects, it must in addition be viewed as an intensely personal, almost humble, offering to God, for it was also inscribed with the simple, emotive appeal: ‘May He grant conquest to [Nur al-Din] and at his own hands.’ Upon its completion, the emir installed the pulpit in Aleppo’s Great Mosque, where, according to Imad al-Din, it lay ‘sheathed like a sword in the scabbard’, awaiting the day of victory, when Nur al-Din might achieve the dream of Jerusalem’s recovery.²¹

How then should Nur al-Din be regarded? Do his attacks on the Franks after the humiliation at Bouqia and his dissemination of jihad ideology prove that he was possessed by an unequivocal commitment to holy war? Can the emir’s own words, recorded in the Damascus Chronicle, be taken at face value? He was said to have declared:

I seek nothing but the good of the Muslims and to make war against the Franks…[If] we aid one another in waging the holy war, and matters are arranged harmoniously and with a single eye to the good, my desire and purpose will be fully achieved.²²

There was a marked difference between Nur al-Din’s approach and focus in the 1140s and his activities in the 1160s. Comparison with the methods and achievements of his father Zangi is striking. But question marks and caveats remain. Given the context, and the complexities of human nature, any expectation of a singular solution–in which Nur al-Din was either wholly dedicated to jihad or purely self-serving–is surely flawed. Just as the Christian First Crusaders appear to have been moved by a mixture of piety and greed, Nur al-Din may well have recognised the political and military value of championing a religious cause, while still being impelled by authentic devotion. As upstart Turkish warlords in a Near and Middle Eastern world still underpinned by Arab and Persian elites, the Zangids’ need for social, religious and political legitimation must have been pressing.

In the course of the twelfth century the notion of a rebirth of Islamic jihad took hold in the Levant, and this process accelerated almost exponentially during Nur al-Din’s career. In 1105, when the Damascene preacher al-Sulami extolled the virtues of holy war, few responded. By the late 1160s the atmosphere in Damascus and Aleppo was transformed–Nur al-Din may well have cultivated and inspired this fervour; at the very least, he understood that a message emphasising the spiritual dimension of the struggles against Sunni Islam’s enemies now would find a receptive audience.

9

THE WEALTH OF EGYPT

For much of the 1160s the conflict between Zangid Islam and the Levantine Franks centred on Egypt, as both powers tried to assert control over the Nile region. In strategic terms, dominion of Egypt might allow Nur al-Din effectively to encircle Outremer–with control of Aleppo and Damascus secured, the addition of Cairo could shift the balance of power in the Near East irrevocably in his favour. The division between Sunni Syria and Shi‘ite Egypt had long undermined any hope of a concerted drive to defeat the Latins. If that rift was somehow overcome, Islam would stand united for the first time since the coming of the crusades.

The Nile’s fabulous wealth was also alluring. The great river’s annual August flood bestowed enormous fertility upon the arable land along its banks throughout the Nile Delta. In a good year, Egypt enjoyed an abundant agricultural surplus and, by association, bounteous tax revenues. The region likewise benefited from burgeoning trade between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, because the critical land route linking the two crossed Egypt. Popular with Italian and Byzantine merchants, the Nile region became one of the world’s leading commercial hubs.