its inhabitants and begged him to withdraw (1); for the townspeople had been ruined, caught between the two armies (2). He granted their request and withdrew (3), returning to Baghdad after two and a half months.

He then set out toward al-Ḥillah and Kūfa, the army marching before him. Sulaymān Shāh said to him, “I am Sanjar’s designated heir; if you will confirm that for me (4), otherwise I am but one of the amirs.” The caliph promised him favor. Sulaymān Shāh used to carry the al-ghāshiya (5)—the ceremonial parasol—before the caliph upon his shoulder. He arranged affairs and firmly consolidated them (6). He saluted the Shrine of ʿAlī with a gesture of his finger (7); he had intended to enter the shrine, but the vizier Ibn Hubayra forbade him, apparently fearing the treachery of the Rāfiḍites—or lest he develop some belief regarding the grave, or for some other reason—(8) and Allah knows best.

The Conquest of Baalbek by Nūr al-Dīn, the Martyr

In that same year Nūr al-Dīn captured Baalbek once again. The background was that Najm al-Dīn Ayyub had been deputy (9) over the city and its citadel; he turned them over to a certain al-Ḍaḥḥāk al-Biqāʿī, who then seized them for himself. Najm al-Dīn wrote (10) to Nūr al-Dīn, and through continuous diplomacy the latter took the citadel as well. He summoned Najm al-Dīn Ayyub to Damascus, granted him a generous fief, and honored him on account of his brother Asad al-Dīn, for the latter had played the chief role in the conquest of Damascus for the just king Nūr al-Dīn.

Nūr al-Dīn appointed the amir Shams al-Dawla Tūrān Shāh (11) ibn Najm al-Dīn as shihna (military governor) of Damascus, and after him installed his brother Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf in the same post, counting him among his intimates who never left his side, whether in residence or on campaign. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn was handsome in appearance and skillful at playing ball, and Nūr al-Dīn delighted in the ball game as a means of exercising the horses and teaching them to charge and wheel about.