The death of Sultan Nur al-Din Zangi

The just king Nur al-Din Mahmud Zangi — unifier of Syria and Egypt, pioneer of the school that produced Salah al-Din, and who prepared the pulpit of Jerusalem years before its liberation in faith of the promise — died in Damascus.

Nur al-Din inherited from his father ʿImad al-Din Zangi the banner of jihad against the Crusaders. He united Aleppo and Damascus, then sent his armies into Egypt until it was annexed to him, and removed the Fatimid state at the hands of his commander Salah al-Din — uniting the front for the first time in a century.

With his jihad he was just and ascetic: he built schools, houses of hadith and the famous Nuri hospital, gave the subjects justice through a court of grievances, and it was said that no ruler's conduct like his had been seen on the pulpits of Islam after the Rightly-Guided. He ordered a splendid pulpit made to be set up in al-Aqsa on the day it would be conquered.

He died in the citadel of Damascus on 11 Shawwal 569 AH before he could see the conquest of Jerusalem, so his student Salah al-Din carried the banner after him and set up his pulpit in al-Aqsa thirteen years later. Nur al-Din was the planter and Salah al-Din the harvester.