and eleven and five hundred (1) (511 AH), the very year in which his son, the just king Nūr al-Dīn the martyr, was born (2). He then transferred him to the city of Mosul and appointed him atabeg over his son, who bore the honorific al-Khafājī, in the year twenty-two and five hundred (522 AH).

Thereafter he overran the lands and his power swelled: he took Edessa, seized Aleppo, Mosul, Ḥamāh, Ḥimṣ, Baalbek, and Banias; he laid siege to Damascus and made peace with its people on condition that the khuṭba be delivered there in his name—after campaigns too long to recount. He also rescued from the Franks Kafr Ṭāb and Maʿarrat, routed them, kept them busy with their own affairs, and the territories submitted to him (3).

He was a warrior—brave, daring like his father, awe-inspiring, handsome of visage, brown-complexioned, comely, already streaked with grey. His courage was proverbial; he neither kept still nor slept. He was fiercely protective—even over the womenfolk of his soldiers—and he revitalised the realm.

He marched on Aleppo in the year twenty-two (522 AH). At the time it belonged to al-Bursuqī (4), who had wrested it from the Banū Artuq; after him it was held by his son Masʿūd, with Qaymāz as deputy and, later, Katlugh. Jocelyn, king of the Franks, then encamped against the city, but they paid him money and he withdrew. A writ of investiture from Sultan Maḥmūd reached Aleppo in favour of Zankī; he entered the city, set its affairs in order, captured several towns, and brought them to heel