“Your father once rendered me a service—I had, in fact, appointed him over this fortress before his son, Najm al-Din Ayyub—and I would hate to distress you both; nevertheless, leave it.”

Bahruz therefore expelled the two of them from his fortress.

On the very night they departed, al-Malik al-Nasir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yusuf was born to him. He said, “I regarded the child as an evil omen, for I had lost my city and my homeland.” Someone remarked to him, “You see the misgiving you feel toward this newborn; what assurance have you that this child will not become a mighty king of great renown (1)?”—and so it came to pass (2).

The two brothers then entered the service of King ʿImād al-Din Zangi, father of Nūr al-Din; afterwards they served his son, Nūr al-Din Maḥmūd, the just king. They rose high in his favor and gained great stature, and Nūr al-Din appointed (3) Najm al-Din Ayyub over Baalbek, while Asad al-Din was counted among his foremost emirs. When he took possession (4) of Baalbek he resided there for a long time, and most of his children were born there.

Later there occurred (5) what we have already related concerning their entry (6) into Egypt, and in the year 564 AH Emir Najm al-Din Ayyub (7) installed his son there.

In Dhu al-Hijjah he fell from his mount and, eight days later, died on the twenty-seventh of that month in that same year. His son al-Malik al-Nasir (8) Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn was at that time besieging (9) al-Karak and al-Shawbak. When the news reached him he was pained at not being present, and he sent letters ablaze with grief and sorrow, reciting:

from al-Kāmil
Death’s hand (10) snatched him away while I was absent;
grant (11) that I had been present—what, then, could I have done?

Najm al-Din Ayyub was devoted (12) to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving; noble-spirited, generous, and widely praised.

The jurist Ibn Khallikan (13) says: He endowed a khānqāh in Egypt, as well as a mosque and a water-channel outside Bab al-Nasr.