Mosul (Nur al-Din Arslan Shah)

Who rules

Name

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

Title

atabeg, lord of Mosul

Since

late Sha'ban 589 (end of August 1193), on his father's death

Born

569 AH (1173-1174), so about 26

Family

Zengid

Confidence

high

TDV 'Nureddin Zengi, Arslansah' and 'Zengiler' (Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil XII and al-Tarikh al-bahir); Ibn al-Athir 589 and 594 read in Richards's translation.

Overlord

None in practice. Mosul had acknowledged Saladin in the treaty of 9 Dhu'l-Hijja 581 (3 March 1186); since 1193 it has stood apart from the Ayyubids and in 1199 fought al-Adil's son. The caliph an-Nasir is named in the khutba.

The realm that morning

Nur al-Din holds Mosul and its plain, the Hakkari castles and Aqr and Shush; he leads the Zengid league and protects Mardin. East of the Great Zab is Gokbori's Irbil; west, Sinjar's Tall Afar; north, the Kurdish mountains and Jazirat ibn Umar; south, the caliph's Takrit.

Military

Turkish mamluk cavalry, Kurdish contingents from the mountains (Hakkari, Humaydi) and Turkmen. Victorious below Mardin in August 1199 in league with Sinjar and Jazirat ibn Umar. No numbers in the sources read.

Threats

• al-Adil, if he wins Egypt, will turn the whole Ayyubid weight on the Jazira
• Sinjar's wavering (al-Adil later wins Qutb al-Din over through the khutba)
• Gokbori of Irbil on the eastern bank of the Zab

Family and heirs

No son of his is known to be born by 1 January 1200: his heir Izz al-Din Mas'ud II was about ten at his death in 1211, and Imad al-Din Zengi III was younger. A brother, Sharaf al-Din, had threatened in 1193 to go over to al-Adil unless given the atabegate; his holding in 1200 is not pinned. Kin: his first cousins Qutb al-Din Muhammad of Sinjar and Mu'izz al-Din Sanjar Shah of Jazirat ibn Umar (all three are grandsons of Qutb al-Din Mawdud).

Officers

Badr al-Din Lu'lu', Armenian-born mamluk of Nur al-Din, now the leading officer of the household after Qaymaz's death (TDV 'Zengiler'); the chancery (diwan al-insha') was run for Nur al-Din by Majd al-Din Ibn al-Athir, elder brother of the historian (from general knowledge; not re-checked). Castellans of al-Imadiya, Aqr and Shush: not pinned.

Castles and towns

• Mosul (citadel and walls on the Tigris)
• Balad (Eski Mosul), upstream on the Tigris
• al-Imadiya (Amadiya), castle built by Zengi in 537 (1142) in the Hakkari country
• Aqr al-Humaydiyya (Aqra) and Shush, castles of the Humaydi Kurdish country
• the Nineveh plain villages east of the Tigris to the Great Zab
• al-Haditha (Hadithat al-Mawsil) near the Zab's mouth: probably Mosul's, not pinned

Mints and trade

Mosul mint (Zengid figural and silver coinage). Wealth: the grain of the Nineveh plain, the Tigris traffic by raft to Baghdad and the caravan road west by Nisibin and Dunaysir to Syria, with their tolls; Mosul cloth (the fine cotton later called muslin); the inlaid brass that would make the city famous belongs to the next generation.

Treaties and wars

• At war with al-Adil since the battle below Mardin (2 August 1199); no treaty until Ras al-Ayn in Sha'ban 597 (May 1201).
• League with Sinjar and Jazirat ibn Umar (1199) and protection over Mardin.
• Old feud with Gokbori of Irbil, whose family had served Mosul and who went over to Saladin; Gokbori was Mosul's ally in 1193 and raided its lands in 1204; his stance in 1199-1200 is not pinned.

Relations

Al-Adil is the enemy; al-Afdal and al-Zahir, al-Adil's other enemies, are natural allies (any formal pact with them in 1199 is not pinned). The caliph an-Nasir is acknowledged; his frontier at Takrit lies down the Tigris.

Churches

Mosul is a great Christian city: the Church of the East (Nestorian) has its metropolitan of Mosul and Athor, the Syriac Orthodox their maphrian, whose house is the monastery of Mar Mattai on the mountain east of the city; there is a large Jewish community with its exilarchal ties to Baghdad.

Coinage

Zengid copper with figural types and silver dirhams struck at Mosul.

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.

In 1200

1. 1200-1201As al-Adil makes himself sultan, the frightened princes rally to Nur al-Din; in Sha'ban 597 (May 1201) he invades the Jazira and makes the treaty of Ras al-Ayn (each keeps what he holds). Later than 1200.Depends on: al-Adil winning Egypt Stopped by: an earlier settlement with al-Adil

Later, on the likely course

1. Sha'ban 600-Muharram 601 (April-September 1204)Nur al-Din retakes Nisibin and Tall Afar from Qutb al-Din; Gokbori raids his lands; he is routed at Bushara/Kafr Zammar by al-Ashraf, Gokbori, Nasir al-Din Mahmud of Hisn Kayfa and Sanjar Shah and must return Tall Afar. Later.Depends on: Qutb al-Din back in al-Adil's camp Stopped by: the Zengid league holding together

Where the sources disagree

• Wikipedia gives Nur al-Din's death as 1211 while a coin catalogue gives 589-607 AH; TDV dates it 29 Rajab 607 (16 January 1211). Not a 1200 issue.

Evidence: Ibn al-Athir was a Mosul man close to this court, so the Zengid side is well told; dates come through TDV's reading of al-Kamil and al-Bahir. Officers below Lu'lu' and the castellans are not named in what was read. Hijri dates converted with the tabular calendar (596 AH runs from about 22 October 1199 to 10 October 1200; 1 January 1200 falls about 12 Rabi' I 596); conversions may be a day or two out.

On the map: The mountain castles stand inside Kurdish tribal country drawn as a province; the plain is Mosul's directly.

Primary sources for this realm

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
• Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo. Read online
• The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, Benjamin of Tudela (about 1173). A generation before 1200 but the only survey of its kind: the Jewish communities and their heads from Navarre through Provence, Italy, Constantinople and the Aegean, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, with notes on rulers, trades, the exilarch at Baghdad, the Assassins of Syria and Persia, and hearsay on India, Ceylon and China. Read online
• The Travels of Ibn Jubayr, Ibn Jubayr (Abu'l-Husayn Muhammad ibn Ahmad) (1185, from a diary kept 1183 to 1185). The best eyewitness of the Mediterranean world fifteen years before 1200, by a secretary of the Almohad governor of Granada: the Almohad port of Ceuta and its Genoese ships, Alexandria and Cairo under Saladin with their customs houses, the pilgrim traffic from the Maghreb, Mecca under its emir and Medina, Baghdad under the caliph al-Nasir, Damascus and Mosul, the Frankish ports of Acre and Tyre with Muslims living under Frankish rule, and Sicily under William II with its Muslim subjects and Arabic-speaking court. Read online