Najm ad-Din Ayyub

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Najm ad-Din Ayyub

al-Malik al-Afdal Najm ad-Din Ayyub ibn Shadhi ibn Marawan (Arabic: ????? ?????? ??? ????? ???? ?? ???? ?? ?????)) (died August 9, 1173) was a Kurdish

Kurdish people

The Kurds are an Iranian peoples ethnolinguistic group mostly inhabiting a region that includes adjacent parts of Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey and which is known as Kurdistan....
soldier and politician from Dvin

Dvin

Dvin was a large commercial city, the capital of early medieval Armenia, the ruins of which are located in the province of Ararat nearby a town by the same name....
, and the father of Saladin

Saladin

ala ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub , better known as Saladin in medieval Europe, was the Sultan of Egypt and Greater Syria. He led the Islamic opposition to the Second Crusade and Third Crusade....
.

Life and career
Ayyub was the son of Shadhi ibn Marwan, a Kurdish ruler, and brother of Shirkuh

Shirkuh

Asad ad-Din Shirkuh bin Shadhi He was originally from a Kurdish people village in Armenia near the town of Dvin. He was the son of Shadhi ibn Marwan, a Kurdish ruler, and was the brother of Najm ad-Din Ayyub, the ancestor of the Ayyubid dynasty....
. The family belonged to the Kurdish tribe of Rawadiya

Rawadid

Rawadid , , was a Kurdish people principality ruling Azerbaijan from the 10th to the early 11th centuries, centered around Tabriz and Maragheh....
, itself a branch of the Hadhabani

Hadhabani

Hadhabani was an 11th century Kurdish people dynasty centered at Oshnavieh. Their dominion included surrounding areas of Maragha and Urmia to the east, Salmas to the north and parts of Arbil and Mosul to the west....
tribe. They were closely connected to the Shaddadid

Shaddadid

The Shaddadids were a History of the Kurds dynasty who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951-1199 A.D. They were established in Dvin....
dynasty, and when the last Shaddadid was deposed in Dvin in 1130, Shadhi moved the family first to Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
and then to Tikrit

Tikrit

Tikrit is a town in Iraq, located 140 km northwest of Baghdad on the Tigris river . The town, with an estimated population in 2002 of about 260,000 is the administrative center of the province of Salah ad Din ....
, where he was appointed governor by the regional administrator Bihruz.

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al-Malik al-Afdal Najm ad-Din Ayyub ibn Shadhi ibn Marawan (Arabic: ????? ?????? ??? ????? ???? ?? ???? ?? ?????)) (died August 9, 1173) was a Kurdish

Kurdish people

Dvin

Dvin was a large commercial city, the capital of early medieval Armenia, the ruins of which are located in the province of Ararat nearby a town by the same name....
, and the father of Saladin

Saladin

ala ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub , better known as Saladin in medieval Europe, was the Sultan of Egypt and Greater Syria. He led the Islamic opposition to the Second Crusade and Third Crusade....
.

Life and career

Ayyub was the son of Shadhi ibn Marwan, a Kurdish ruler, and brother of Shirkuh

Shirkuh

Rawadid

Rawadid , , was a Kurdish people principality ruling Azerbaijan from the 10th to the early 11th centuries, centered around Tabriz and Maragheh....
, itself a branch of the Hadhabani

Hadhabani

Shaddadid

Baghdad

Tikrit

Zengi

Imad ad-Din Atabeg Zengi was the son of Aq Sunqur al-Hajib, governor of Aleppo under Malik Shah I. His father was Decapitation for treason in 1094, and Zengi was brought up by Karbuqa, the governor of Mosul....
, and participated in a battle against the Seljuk Sultan

Seljuq dynasty

The Seljuq were a Turco-Persian Sunni Muslim dynasty that ruled parts of Central Asia and the Middle East from the 11th to 14th centuries. They set up an empire known as Great Seljuq Empire that stretched from Anatolia through Persia and was the target of the First Crusade....
near Tikrit. Najm ad-Din saved Zengi's life when he assisted Zengi's retreat across the Tigris

Tigris

The Tigris is the eastern member of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, along with the Euphrates, which flows from the mountains of southeastern Turkey through Iraq....
. In 1136, Shirkuh killed a Christian with whom he was quarrelling in Tikrit, and the brothers were exiled (Ayyub's son Yusuf, later known as Saladin, was supposedly born the night they left). Zengi appointed Ayyub governor of Baalbek

Baalbek

Baalbek is a town in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon, altitude 1,170 m , situated east of the Litani River. It is famous for its exquisitely detailed yet monumentally scaled temple ruins of the Roman Empire period, when Baalbek, known as Heliopolis was one of the largest sanctuaries in the Empire....
, and when the town was besieged in 1146 by Mu'in ad-Din Unur

Mu'in ad-Din Unur

Mu'in ad-Din Unur al-Atabeki was the ruler of Damascus in the mid-12th century....
, the atabeg

Atabeg

Atabeg, Atabek, or Atabey is a hereditary title of nobility of Turkic language origin , indicating a governor of a nation or province who was subordinate to a monarch and charged with raising the crown prince....
of the Burid

Burid dynasty

The Burid dynasty was a Turkish dynasty which ruled over Damascus in the early 12th century. The first Burid ruler, Toghtekin of Damascus, began as a servant to the Seljuk Turks ruler of Damascus, Duqaq of Damascus....
emir of Damascus

Damascus

Damascus is the capital and largest city of Syria. It is List of oldest continuously inhabited cities and its current population is estimated at about 4,000,000....
, Ayyub surrendered it and retired to Damascus. Shirkuh, meanwhile, entered the service of Zengi's son Nur ad-Din

Nur ad-Din

al-Malik al-Adil Nur ad-Din Abu al-Qasim Mahmud Ibn 'Imad ad-Din Zangi , also known as Nur ed-Din, Nur al-Din, etc. was a member of the Zengid dynasty who ruled Syria from 1146 to 1174....
, who had designs on Damascus; when the Second Crusade

Second Crusade

The Second Crusade was the second major crusade launched from Europe, called in 1145 in response to the fall of the County of Edessa the previous year....
besieged the city

Siege of Damascus

The Siege of Damascus took place over four days in July 1148, during the Second Crusade. It ended in a decisive crusader defeat and led to the disintegration of the crusade....
in 1148, Nur ad-Din forced Mu'in ad-Din and the Burids into a reluctant alliance. Soon Nur ad-Din demanded the city be handed over to him, and Ayyub and Shirkuh negotiated the surrender of the city in 1154. Ayyub remained governor of Damascus under Nur ad-Din's rule. He was held in such honour that he was the only one of Nur ad-Din's officials allowed to remain seated in his presence.

Ayyub's son Saladin also took up service with Nur ad-Din, and he was sent to Egypt

Egypt

Egypt is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia. Covering an area of about , Egypt borders the Mediterranean Sea to the north, the Gaza Strip and Israel to the northeast, the Red Sea to the east, Sudan to the south and Libya to the west....
to take control in Nur ad-Din's name during the period of joint crusader

Kingdom of Jerusalem

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Christianity kingdom established in the Levant in 1099 after the First Crusade. It lasted nearly two hundred years, from 1099 until 1291 when the last remaining possession, Acre, Israel, was destroyed by the Mamluks....
-Byzantine

Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire and Eastern Roman Empire are conventional names used to describe the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages, centered on its capital of Constantinople....
invasions. In 1170 Ayyub joined him there, either summoned by Saladin himself, or sent by Nur ad-Din to convince Saladin to depose the last Fatimid

Fatimid

The Fatimid Caliphate or al-Fatimiyyun was an Arab Shi'a dynasty that ruled over varying areas of the Maghreb, Egypt, Sicily, Malta and the Levant from 5 January 909 to 1171....
caliph. Saladin offered the vizierate to him, but he refused, and instead was granted Alexandria

Alexandria

Alexandria , with a population of 4.1 million, is the second-largest city in Egypt, and is the country's largest seaport, serving about 80% of Egypt's imports and exports....
, Damietta

Damietta

Damietta, Damiata, or Domyat is a harbor and the capital of the governorate of Domyat Governorate, Egypt. It is located at the intersection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile, about north of Cairo....
, and Al Buhayrah

Al Buhayrah

Al Buhayrah may refer to:*Al Bu?ayrah, Yemen*Al Buhayrah Governorate...
as personal fiefs. Many of Saladin's other relatives also joined him in Egypt. Nur ad-Din did not trust Saladin and his family, correctly assuming that they were consolidating power against him; Ayyub publicly supported Nur ad-Din, but privately warned his son that Nur ad-Din should never be allowed to take Egypt from him.

Death

Najm ad-Din was injured in a horse riding accident on July 31, 1173, and died on August 9. His death exacerbated the tension between Saladin and Nur ad-Din; the latter had summoned the former to assist in an expedition against the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but Saladin returned home when he heard of his father's death. The expected confrontation between Nur ad-Din and Saladin did not occur, as Nur ad-Din died the next year, and Saladin eventually took control of the whole of Egypt and Syria.

According to Baha ad-Din, Ayyub was "a noble, generous man, mild and of excellent character." He was also "passionately fond of polo

Polo

Polo is a team sport played on horseback in which the objective is to score Goal s against an opposing team. Riders score by driving a small white plastic or wooden Ball game into the opposing team's goal using a long-handled mallet....
". Ibn al-Qalanisi

Ibn al-Qalanisi

Hamza ibn Asad abu Ya'la ibn al-Qalanisi was an Arab politician and chronicler in Damascus in the 12th century.He descended from the Banu Tamim tribe, and was among the well-educated nobility of the city of Damascus....
calls him "a man of resolution, intelligence and knowledge of affairs", who prudently handed over Baalbek to a superior force in return for rewards and honours.

His given name was Ayyub (Job), from which comes the Ayyubid dynasty

Ayyubid dynasty

The Ayyubid or Ayyoubid Dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Kurds origins which ruled Egypt, Syria, Yemen , Diyar Bakr, Mecca, Hejaz and northern Iraq in the 12th and 13th centuries....
of Saladin and his successors. Najm ad-Din is an honorific meaning "star of the faith".

Family and children

Ayyub had several children with an unknown woman or women:

Nur ad-Din Shahanshah (died 1148)
Salah ad-Din Yusuf
Saladin

ala ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub , better known as Saladin in medieval Europe, was the Sultan of Egypt and Greater Syria. He led the Islamic opposition to the Second Crusade and Third Crusade....
(1137-1193)
al-Malik al-Adil Sayf ad-Din Abu Bakr Ahmad
Al-Adil I

Al-Adil I was an Ayyubid-Egyptian general and ruler of Kurdish people descent. From his honorific "Sayf al-Din", he was sometimes known to the Frankish crusaders as "Saphadin."...
(1145-1218)
al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Shams ad-Dawla Turanshah (died 1181)
Taj al-Muluk Abu Sa'id Buri (died 1184)
al-Malik al-'Aziz Sayf al-Islam Tughtekin (died 1197)
unknown daughters

Sources

Baha ad-Din, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, ed. D. S. Richards, Ashgate
Ashgate

Ashgate is an area in northeast Derbyshire, England, west of the town of Chesterfield. It is close to the town centre and local amenities.A leading place of interest in the area is the Inkerman playing fields, formerly a Victorian era swimming baths and a former area of pottery, most notably Bramptonware....
, 2002.
The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, Extracted and Translated from the Chronicle of Ibn al-Qalanisi
Ibn al-Qalanisi

Hamza ibn Asad abu Ya'la ibn al-Qalanisi was an Arab politician and chronicler in Damascus in the 12th century.He descended from the Banu Tamim tribe, and was among the well-educated nobility of the city of Damascus....
. H.A.R. Gibb, 1932 (reprint, Dover Publications, 2002)
Vladimir Minorsky, "The Prehistory of Saladin", in Studies in Caucasian History, Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press is a printer and publisher granted a Royal Letters Patent by Henry VIII of England in 1534. It is the world's oldest continually operating book publisher....
, 1957, pp. 124-132. ()
M. C. Lyons and D. E. P. Jackson, Saladin: the Politics of the Holy War, Cambridge University Press
Cambridge University Press

Cambridge University Press is a printer and publisher granted a Royal Letters Patent by Henry VIII of England in 1534. It is the world's oldest continually operating book publisher....
, 1982.
P. M. Holt, The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517, Longman
Longman

Longman was a publisher founded in London, England in 1724. It is now an imprint of Pearson Education....
, 1986.