and the power of King ʿAbd al-Muʾmin likewise swelled, until he gained mastery over the lands of the Maghrib. (1)

In the year 542 AH Ibn Hubayrah was put in charge of the Dīwān al-Zimām, (2) Ibn Jahīr was removed from that office, and Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Ṣadaqa was appointed vizier.

In 543 AH three Frankish kings came to Jerusalem, one of them the sovereign of the Germans. They performed the ṣalāt al-mawt (prayer of death) and distributed seven hundred thousand dinars among their soldiers. The people of Damascus had no inkling of their approach until the Franks were upon them at dawn with ten thousand horsemen and sixty thousand infantry. The Muslims—cavalry and foot—rode out to meet them, and in the clash some two hundred were martyred, among them al-Fandalaawī (3) and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥalḥūlī. Fighting resumed the next day and many Franks were killed.

On the fifth day Ghāzī ibn Zengī arrived from the Jazīra with twenty thousand men, followed by his brother Nūr al-Dīn. The outcry, prayers, and supplications in Damascus were beyond description; the people placed the ʿUthmānic codex of the Quran in the courtyard of the congregational mosque. The enemy’s priest had boasted: “The Messiah has promised me the conquest of Damascus.” He was surrounded, mounted his donkey with the cross in his hand, but the Damascenes charged, killed him and his beast, and when reinforcements arrived the Franks were routed. (4)

Ibn al-Athīr (5) relates: “The German king set out from his own realm to attack the Muslims, and the Franks of Syria joined him. He besieged Damascus, whose ruler was Mujīr al-Dīn Abaq, with Muʿīn al-Dīn Anur as his atabeg. The sons of Zengī came to their aid, and the German king encamped on the Green Plain.”