was killed at Manbij; his cousin Timurtash ibn Ilghazi thereupon took possession of Aleppo (1). Balak had earlier captured Baldwin, the ruler of Jerusalem. Baldwin ransomed himself and concluded a truce with him, but then broke faith: he and Dubays al-Asadi (2), together with Ibrahim the son of Aleppo’s former lord, Ridwan ibn Tutush the Seljuq, besieged Aleppo. Its inhabitants died of hunger and disease. By night the city’s judge, Abu Ghanim, al-Sharif Zuhrah, and another companion slipped past the Franks and made their way to Timurtash in Mardin, but Timurtash kept stalling them. They therefore stole away to Mosul, where they found al-Bursuqi ill.

We said to him, ‘Pledge before Allah that, if He cures you, you will support us.’ He answered, ‘Yes, by Allah.’ Three days later he had recovered, summoned the volunteer fighters, and when he came within sight of Aleppo the Franks withdrew. The city’s combatants rode out to meet him; they charged the enemy and put them to flight. He reorganised the city’s affairs and supplied it with grain, so the people hastened to sow in March and watered the wheat and barley. He left his son in command there and returned (3).

He had previously laid waste among the Ismaʿilis, so ten of them attacked him in the congregational mosque. With his own hand he killed three of them, yet he himself—may Allah have mercy on him—was slain in Dhu al-Qaʿda, 520 AH. The assassins were dressed as Sufis, and only one of them escaped (4).