The Turkish dynasty of Zengi and Nur ad-Din that united Muslim Syria against the Crusaders and prepared the ground for Saladin.
The dynasty was founded by Imad ad-Din Zengi, a Turkish military governor (atabeg) who from 1127 built a powerful state around Mosul and Aleppo. Ruthless and effective, he united much of Muslim northern Syria and Mesopotamia under his command.
In 1144 Zengi captured the Crusader county of Edessa, the first of the crusader states to fall — a blow that shocked Europe and provoked the Second Crusade.
Zengi’s son Nur ad-Din inherited Aleppo and went on to unite Muslim Syria, taking Damascus in 1154. A pious and disciplined ruler, he made the recovery of Jerusalem and the revival of Sunni Islam a central cause, building mosques, madrasas, and hospitals and presenting himself as the model just prince (mujahid).
It was Nur ad-Din who sent his general Shirkuh, and Shirkuh’s nephew Saladin, into Egypt — a campaign that would ultimately overshadow the Zengids themselves.
When Nur ad-Din died in 1174 his heir as-Salih Ismail was a child, and Saladin — now master of Egypt — moved to take Nur ad-Din’s Syrian lands, presenting himself as the true heir to his cause. By the time as-Salih died in 1181, the Zengid state of Syria had passed to the Ayyubids.
A junior Zengid line lingered at Mosul, but the dynasty’s historical role was over.
The Zengids reversed the momentum of the Crusades: Zengi took the first crusader state, and Nur ad-Din forged the united Muslim Syria and the ideology of counter-crusade that Saladin inherited and used to retake Jerusalem.
Nur ad-Din in particular was remembered by later Muslim tradition as a model of just and pious rule, a reputation that shaped the image of the ideal Islamic ruler.