Shīrkūh ibn Shādhī (1), surnamed Asad al-Dīn, the Kurdish al-Rawādī (2):
The Rawādīs are counted the noblest of the Kurdish clans (3). He came from a village called Duwīn (4) in the province of Adharbayjan. Together with his elder brother, Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb, he entered the service of the amir (5) Mujāhid al-Dīn Bihruz the eunuch, the shihna (military governor) of Iraq. Bihruz appointed Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb (6) his deputy over the citadel of Tikrit. It so happened that King (7) ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī, fleeing from Qarāja al-Sāqī, sought refuge there; the two brothers treated him kindly and rendered him every service. Later, when a commoner was killed during a disciplinary beating (8), Bihruz expelled them from the fortress. They repaired to Zangī in Aleppo, who received them graciously. In time they rose in the favor of his son Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd, who appointed Ayyūb governor of Baalbek (9) and confirmed him in that post. Under Nūr al-Dīn, Asad al-Dīn became his foremost commander and the one closest to him.
Nūr al-Dīn granted him al-Raḥba and Ḥimṣ as fiefs, in addition to the other estates already in his possession, in recognition of his gallantry, courage, stern resolve, and striving against the enemies of Allah (10)—the Franks and others—in many a numbered day and memorable engagement, especially on the day the Martyr captured Damascus, the city safeguarded by victory. More astonishing still was what he accomplished in the lands of Egypt. May Allah water his grave with mercy and make Paradise his abode.
He died suddenly of a throat obstruction on Saturday, the twenty-second of Jumāda al-Ākhira of this same year (may Allah have mercy on him).
(1) His biography appears in Suna al-Barq al-Shami (vol. 1: 80–81), Ibn al-Athir (vol. 9: 101–102), Wafayat al-A‘yan (vol. 2: 479–481), Tarikh Ibn al-Abbari (pp. 369–370), Mukhtasar Abi al-Fida (vol. 3: 46–47), al-‘Ibar (vol. 4: 186–187), Mir’at al-Jinan (vol. 3: 374), and al-Kawakib al-Duriyya (p. 179). According to Ibn Khallikan, “Shirkūh” is a non-Arabic term meaning “lion of the mountain,” since shīr means “lion” and kūh “mountain.”
(2) Manuscript A reads al-Zarari, B al-Darari, and T al-Zarzari. The following information derives from the biographical sources: al-Zarzari (with a fatha on the r and w) is a clan of the Hadhbaniya, a large Kurdish tribe. See Tarikh Ibn al-Abbari (p. 370), Wafayat al-A‘yan (vol. 7: 139), and Mukhtasar Abi al-Fida (vol. 3: 47).
(3) al-Dhahabi states: “A faction of the Banu Ayyub rejected any association with the Kurds, saying, ‘We are Arabs who settled among the Kurds and intermarried with them.’” Tarikh al-Islam (vol. 12: 319) (Bishr ed.).
(4) Manuscript T reads “Drin,” a scribal mistake. The correct name is Duwain—written with a kasra on the dād (per Yaqut) or a ḍamma (per Ibn Khallikan [vol. 7: 139]), with a kasra on the wāw, sukun on the yā’, and a final nūn. It was a town at the edge of the province of Azerbaijan on the Aran side near Tiflis. Klüstrang does not mention Duwain in his account of Aran and Tiflis in the Eastern Caliphate. Today Tiflis is in the Republic of Georgia.
(5) Recorded only in manuscript B.
(6) Found only in manuscript T.
(7) Absent from manuscript B.
(8) Manuscript A reads “qatlan” (killing).
(9) Manuscript A reads Ba’albak Zangi.
(10) Manuscript B reads ada'ihi (his enemies); this term does not appear in manuscript T.