Salah al-Din assumed the vizierate of al-ʿĀḍid, a post that was virtually equivalent to sovereignty (1). He succeeded his uncle in 564 AH. When al-ʿĀḍid died in 567 AH, Salah al-Din took the reins of power outright, while at the same time courting and outmaneuvering Nūr al-Din; for Nūr al-Din had been determined to march on Egypt and install someone other than Salah al-Din, but his resolve cooled. Once Nūr al-Din died, Salah al-Din hastened north to appoint himself atabeg to the atabeg’s young son. He entered the city unopposed and, in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 570 AH, gained complete control. He took up residence in the house of al-ʿAqīqī, seized the citadel, quietly removed the boy from the center of affairs, and then moved on.

He captured Homs, advanced on Aleppo—this was the first engagement—and Sultan Ghāzī of Mosul equipped his brother ʿIzz al-Din Masʿūd with an army and dispatched him. Masʿūd reached Homs and, together with the men of Aleppo, met Salah al-Din at Qurūn Ḥamā; Masʿūd was routed and his emirs taken prisoner. Salah al-Din pressed forward and besieged Aleppo a second time, and the defenders bought peace by surrendering Maʿarra and Kafartāb. When word of his kinsmen’s defeat reached Ghāzī, he crossed the Euphrates and came to Aleppo, where his cousin al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ met him. They and Salah al-Din then fought the Battle of Tell al-Sulṭān, in which Salah al-Din again triumphed, and the ruler of Mosul withdrew.

Salah al-Din next took Manbij and Azāz and laid siege to Aleppo for a third time. The inhabitants sent out Nūr al-Din’s daughter to him, and he granted her Azāz.

He returned to Egypt, leaving his brother Turānshāh—the ruler of Yemen—as deputy over Damascus. In 573 AH he marched out of Egypt, encountered the Franks, and was defeated.

In 579 AH he again besieged Aleppo, captured it, compensated ʿImād al-Din Zangī with Sinjār and Sarūj, and installed his own son al-Malik al-Ẓāhir there.

He then laid siege to al-Karak, and Frankish reinforcements arrived.