Tenth: idea eight — the Crusader campaigns and the idea of jihad

10Tenth: idea eight — the Crusader campaigns and the idea of jihad

• The Muslims profited from the ordeal of Jerusalem at the hands of the Crusaders: the idea of Islamic jihad spread and was revived in order to end the Crusader presence in the Levant.
• Nur al-Din Mahmud — the son of the cousin of Imad al-Din Zangi, the ruler of Mosul — held that jihad could not succeed except by unifying the Islamic front.

Nur al-Din's plan

• To end the Shiʿi Fatimid caliphate.
• To bring Egypt back into the fold of the Sunni Abbasid caliphate.
• To squeeze the Crusaders between the two millstones.

Carrying the plan out

• Nur al-Din took Damascus in 549 AH (1154 CE).
• His two commanders Asad al-Din Shirkuh and his nephew Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi took Egypt in 564 AH (1169 CE), after three attempts.
• The Fatimid caliphate ended in 567 AH (1171 CE), and Salah al-Din became the one in control of the Islamic forces.