3 Key Muslim Leaders Who Rose During the Second Crusade

Pope Urban II’s call for a crusade to the Holy Land saw an astonishing response across Western Europe. A desire for wealth, adventure, and salvation saw the launch of the First Crusade in 1096. Three years later, Jerusalem fell to Christian advances. Shock waves rippled throughout the Islamic world. Muslim forces recognized their poor attempt to counter the Christian expansion, but the emergence of a strong leader and the founder of the Zengid Dynasty meant that the Crusaders soon launched the Second Crusade.

Imad al-Din Zengi (Zengi), the founder of the Zengid Dynasty, is recognized as the first key figure in the Muslim counter crusade. Governor of Mosul in the Seljuk Empire, Zengi proved to be an efficient military commander, which was crucial to his success in uniting Islamic forces against the Crusaders.

Zengi recognized the importance of positioning himself as not just a political leader, but a religious one as well. This strategy was crucial in rallying Muslims across the East, whose internal disagreements and conflicts were partly to blame for the Christians’ initial success. Zengi glorified the concept of holy war, or jihad, to maintain unity and loyalty to his cause.

Even though he did not recapture Jerusalem in his holy war, Zengi’s conquests in the wider Crusader states of the Holy Land, or Outremer, consolidated a platform that future Muslim rulers could build on to recapture more land. His most notable success at Edessa in 1144, earned Zengi his power and reputation, along with his brutal tactics of pillaging, plundering, and looting his targets.

It was the fall of Edessa that provoked the Second Crusade, however, Zengi’s successes reached far beyond this. He also conquered all Christian lands east of the Euphrates, the city of Sarūj, and many other Christian strongholds in the Jazīra.

After years of disunity and chaos, Zengi began the all-important task of unifying the Islamic world and set the precedent of significant Christian defeats throughout the Second Crusade. Zengi’s second son, Nur al-Din, was able to learn from his father’s victories and use the foundations his father had built to continue Islamic success in the Holy Land. Nur al-Din’s moment in history, however, was to arrive much sooner than anticipated with his father’s assassination by a Frankish slave in 1146.

Zengi’s initial successes paved the way for Nur al-Din to continue fighting the Crusader forces, who by now had launched their Second Crusade. Zengi may have utilized jihad to unite his armies, but it was Nur al-Din who expanded the concept of holy war beyond anything his father had ever achieved. It became central to his success, with contemporaries praising Nur al-Din for his dedication to jihad both militarily and personally.

The chronicler Ibn al-Athīr recounts Nur al-Din’s internal struggle and his drive for piety and purity, something Muslims of the time believed was paramount before one could wage war against Allah’s enemies. It was this personal dedication to jihad that gained Nur al-Din’s loyalty, respect, and admiration, and allowed him to continue his father’s work. Al-Athīr recalls how Nur al-Din’s power grew in areas outside of his control, particularly in religiously significant locations such as Mecca and Medina.

During Nur al-Din’s rule, the Christians suffered a vicious cycle whereby each military success brought Nur al-Din further loyalty, control, and thus power. The more powerful he became, the more land Nur al-Din was able to retake from the Crusaders. Building on Zengi’s success, Nur al-Din secured his own notable military victories namely in Antioch and Aleppo in 1149, and at the Battle of Harīm in 1164.

Despite Nur al-Din’s tremendous efforts to unify the Islamic world under his rule, trouble began to brew in other factions. Nur al-Din grew suspicious of Saladin, whom he believed had set his sights on Nur al-Din’s position and power for himself. Nur al-Din prepared to invade Egypt to remove Saladin from his position, however, he died from a fever during the preparations, leaving a power vacuum for the next great leader to step in and seize power for himself.

Saladin, the nephew of Nur al-Din’s commander, became a powerful rival to Nur al-Din. The leader’s suspicions of Saladin proved well-founded and once Nur al-Din died, Saladin moved quickly to depose Nur al-Din’s son. He married Nur al-Din’s widow, defeated all rivals, and combined his empire with Nur al-Din’s to rule Egypt and Syria. This created an Islamic force never seen before by the Christians and it marked the beginning of the end of Crusader power in the Holy Land.

Like Nur al-Din, Saladin made his personal quest for jihad a priority, helping him gain the support and respect of the newly acquired forces in Syria. Saladin’s character, motivations, and military successes have marked his legacy and reputation as arguably the most successful leader in Islamic history.

Saladin knew that political, as well as religious, unity was crucial to his success, and so he used various successful strategies such as the iqta (tax farming) system and powerful alliances through marriage to secure his position. Saladin’s power and influence grew beyond anything Zengi or Nur al-Din had ever achieved and soon became the largest ever threat to Christian dominance in the Holy Land.

Saladin’s military successes are some of the most remembered conquests in history. From the crushing Christian defeat at Hattin in July 1187 to the Siege of Jerusalem, only several months later, Saladin’s tactics and strategies have been analyzed and observed by military commanders for centuries. Even modern cinema, in the form of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven, has immortalized the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin’s relentless siege. Because of his exceptional leadership, and the success of the two rulers before him, the Second Crusade proved to be a complete disaster for the Christians. In October 1187, the Holy Cross was removed and the Crescent of Islam sat atop the Holy Sepulchre once more.