Nur al-Din Mahmud Zangi

Nur al-Din Mahmud ibn Imad al-Din Zangi was born in 1118 CE in Mosul. He succeeded his father Imad al-Din Zangi (founder of the Zengid dynasty) in 1146 CE, ruling Aleppo, and then expanded southward until he took Damascus in 1154 CE — unifying Syria for the first time since the Umayyad era.

Key achievements:

• defeating the Crusaders: he won the Battle of Harim in 1164 — capturing the princes of Antioch and Tripoli — took the fortress, and then captured Baniyas the same year; it was the heaviest real military defeat for the Crusaders since the founding of the Kingdom of Jerusalem
• Damascus: incorporating it in 1154 when its Burid ruler Mujir al-Din Abaq handed it over, making it part of his unified state
• recovering coastal territories: he took Crusader castles along the Syrian coast, threatening the Kingdom of Jerusalem directly
• building the madrasas: he built a network of Sunni schools (Nur al-Din's madrasas) in Aleppo, Damascus, Homs, and Hama — platforms for spreading Sunni teaching and combating Fatimid Shi'ism
• sending Saladin to Egypt: Saladin was among his closest commanders, and Nur al-Din pushed him to take Egypt in 1169, encircling the Crusaders from the south
• the jihad cause: he proclaimed himself the leader of jihad against the Crusaders, reviving Islamic momentum across Syria

Nur al-Din died suddenly on 15 May 1174 CE in Damascus. He left a unified kingdom stretching from Mosul to Egypt (after Saladin took Egypt), becoming the chief architect of the Ayyubid state that would later produce the victory of Hattin in 1187.