(Homs had first belonged to his father, al-Malik al-Mujāhid; later Nūr al-Dīn bestowed it upon this son, so that he and his descendants ruled it independently for a full century.)
Nāṣir al-Dīn was known for his gallantry and courage. When the Sultan (1) fell ill in Ḥarrān during Shawwāl and his sickness became grave, he drew up his will. Nāṣir al-Dīn then left his side, passed through Aleppo, raised a band of young fighters, lavished money on them, and reached Homs. From there he approached the people of Damascus, proposing to take control of the city. Once the Sultan recovered, however, Nāṣir al-Dīn withdrew; not long afterwards he died. Some say he was poisoned (2); others claim he perished in a bout of drunkenness.
The more widely accepted report is that he contracted an acute illness and died on the Day of ʿArafah in 581 AH. His wife—his cousin Sitt al-Shām, the Sultan’s sister—then had his body moved to her own mausoleum in the school she had founded in Damascus, where she buried him beside her brother, al-Malik Shams al-Dawlah Turānshāh.
Ibn Wāṣil (3) relates: “He became drunk and was found dead the next morning. His son Shirkuh succeeded him, and the fortune he left behind was estimated at about one million dinars.”
- al-Bahlawān, son of the Atabeg Ildegiz*
Lord of Azerbaijan and Persian Iraq, and—like his father—one of the great kings of his age.