Arslan Shah

Who he is

Name

Nur al-Din Arslan Shah I ibn Izz al-Din Mas'ud

Title

atabeg, lord of Mosul

Since

end of August 1193 (Sha'ban 589)

Born

569 AH (1173-1174)

Family

Zengid

Confidence

high

TDV 'Nureddin Zengi, Arslansah' (Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil XII 101-194; al-Bahir 189-201; Abu Shama).

Overlord

None (caliph acknowledged).

What it holds

• Mosul (citadel and walls)
• the Nineveh plain to the Great Zab
• Balad (Eski Mosul)
• al-Imadiya (Amadiya) in the Hakkari country
• Aqr al-Humaydiyya (Aqra) and Shush

How it was acquired

Inherited from his father Izz al-Din Mas'ud, with the support of Mujahid al-Din Qaymaz.

Allies and rivals

League with Qutb al-Din of Sinjar and Sanjar Shah of Jazirat ibn Umar; protector of Mardin. Enemies: al-Adil and his sons. Rival: Gokbori of Irbil.

How things stand that morning

Back in Mosul after his illness; at war with al-Adil but with no campaign in progress.

Wealth

Mosul's markets, cloth and metalwork, the Tigris traffic and the plain's grain.

Military

Mamluk cavalry, Kurdish and Turkmen contingents; victorious below Mardin (August 1199).

Threats

• al-Adil once master of Egypt
• Gokbori
• Sinjar's defection

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

1. Sha'ban 597 (May 1201)Invades the Jazira; treaty of Ras al-Ayn. Later.Depends on: al-Adil's sultanate alarming the princes Stopped by: an earlier peace

Places of note

• al-Imadiya: Castle built by Zengi in 537 (1142) to hold the Hakkari Kurds; Mosul's garrison.
• Aqr al-Humaydiyya: Castle of the Humaydi Kurdish country; with Shush later left to Nur al-Din's younger son (1211).

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: Mosul's own historian Ibn al-Athir is the main source.

On the map: The castles are drawn as small discs inside Kurdish tribal ground.

Primary sources for Mosul

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• The Book of the Two Gardens, on the Reigns of Nur al-Din and Saladin, and its Sequel, Abu Shama (Shihab al-Din Abd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi) (about 1240 to 1267, at Damascus). The Rawdatayn ends with Saladin's death in 1193 and matters for 1200 as the store of Imad al-Din al-Isfahani's lost al-Barq al-Shami and of al-Qadi al-Fadil's letters, quoted at length, which describe the Ayyubid princes, the Jazira and the frontier a few years earlier. Read online
• The Complete History, Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir (about 1200 to 1231, at Mosul). The widest Muslim narrative for the years 596 to 597 AH (1199 to 1201): al-Adil's entry into Cairo and his taking of the sultanate from his nephew al-Mansur Muhammad early in 1200, the quarrels of the Ayyubid princes at Damascus, Aleppo and Hama, the Nile failure and the great famine of Egypt, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah and the Jazira under Gokbori and the Artuqids, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, the Khwarazmshah Tekish's death in 1200 and Muhammad's accession, the Ghurid wars in Khurasan, the Eldiguzids and Georgia, the Almohads in the west, and the Seljuks of Rum in passing. Read online
• The Mirror of Time, on the History of Notables, Sibt ibn al-Jawzi (Shams al-Din Yusuf) (about 1240 to 1256, at Damascus). A Damascene preacher's year-by-year chronicle with obituaries, written by a grandson of the Baghdad scholar Ibn al-Jawzi, so it carries both the Baghdad view (the caliph al-Nasir and his court) and the Damascus view (al-Adil's court, the famine refugees of 1200, prices, the plague of 1201). Read online
• The Anonymous Syriac Chronicle to 1234, Anonymous (a Syrian Orthodox writer, probably of Edessa) (about 1234 to 1240). An Edessene chronicle independent of Michael the Syrian in its later part, with a secular section reaching 1234 that gives the Jazira, Edessa, Harran, Mardin and Melitene about 1200 under al-Adil's sons and the Artuqids, the Seljuks of Rum, the Armenians of Cilicia and the Franks of Antioch, and a church section to 1207 on the Jacobite succession after Michael's death in 1199. Read online
• The Chronicle of Michael the Syrian (Michael the Great), Michael the Syrian, patriarch of Antioch 1166 to 1199 (about 1180 to 1195). The Jacobite patriarch's world chronicle, in parallel columns of church, secular and miscellaneous events, ending four years before 1200 and shortly before his own death on 7 November 1199, which left the Syrian Orthodox church with a disputed succession in 1200. Read online
• The Chronography of Bar Hebraeus, Gregory Bar Hebraeus (Abu'l-Faraj) (about 1275 to 1286). A later compilation that for 1200 relies on Michael the Syrian and Ibn al-Athir, but adds the Jacobite church's own memory of the Jazira, Mosul, Melitene and the Artuqid and Zangid courts, and carries Michael's story past 1195: the Seljuk brothers' war in Rum, the Khwarazmian and Ghurid wars in the east, Mosul under Nur al-Din Arslan Shah, and the caliph al-Nasir. Read online
• The Eloquent Exposition of the Conquest of Jerusalem, Imad al-Din al-Isfahani (al-Katib) (about 1192 to 1193). Saladin's secretary's ornate account of the conquest of Jerusalem and the Third Crusade, ending with Saladin's death in 1193. Read online
• The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, Baha al-Din Ibn Shaddad (after 1193, probably between about 1198 and 1228, at Aleppo). Ends with Saladin's death in March 1193 and so gives no event of 1200, but it is the formative portrait of the Ayyubid house of 1200: al-Adil, al-Afdal, al-Aziz and al-Zahir Ghazi as Saladin's lieutenants, the Mosul and Jazira campaigns, the war of Acre and the treaty of Jaffa of 1192. Read online

3 more in the sources library for The Latin East and the Ayyubids.