al-Malik al-Afdal Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb ibn Shādhi ibn Marwān ( ar, الملك ألأفضل نجم الدين أيوب بن شاذي بن مروان Kurdish: Necmeddin Eyûbî) (died August 9, 1173) was a Kurdish soldier and politician from Dvin, and the father of

Saladin Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt an ...

. He is the eponymous ancestor of the

Ayyubid dynasty The Ayyubid dynasty ( ar, الأيوبيون '; ) was the founding dynasty of the medieval Sultanate of Egypt established by Saladin in 1171, following his abolition of the Fatimid Caliphate of Egypt. A Sunni Muslim of Kurdish origin, Saladin ...

Life and career

Ayyub was the son of Shadhi ibn Marwan and brother of

Shirkuh Asad ad-Dīn Shīrkūh bin Shādhī (; ar, أسد الدين شيركوه بن شاذي), also known as Shirkuh, or Şêrko (meaning "lion of the mountains" in Kurdish) (died 22 February 1169) was a Kurdish military commander, and uncle of Sal ...

. The family belonged to the tribe of Revend or Revendi, also Kurdish Rawadiya,

Vladimir Minorsky Vladimir Fyodorovich Minorsky (russian: Владимир Фёдорович Минорский; – March 25, 1966) was a Russian Orientalist best known for his contributions to the study of Persian, Lurish and Kurdish history, geography, ...

, Prehistory of Saladin http://rbedrosian.com/Ref/Minorsky/vmpsal1.htm#124. itself a branch of the

Hadhabani Hadhabani (also: ''Hadhbani'') ( ku, ھەزەبانی ,Hecbanî) was a large medieval Sunni Muslim Kurdish tribe divided into several groups, centered at Arbil, Ushnu and Urmia. Their dominion included surrounding areas of Maragha and Urmia to th ...

tribe. The earliest form of the name is written "Rewend" in the ''

Sharafnama The ''Sharafnama'' ( Kurdish: شەرەفنامە Şerefname, "The Book of Honor", Persian: Sharafname, شرفنامه) is the famous book of Sharaf al-Din Bitlisi (a medieval Kurdish historian and poet) (1543–1599), which he wrote in 1597, in P ...

''. According to

, this could have been a corruption of the Arabic name "Rawadiya". In contrast, the name of "Rewend" or in some cases "Revend" means "Nomad" in Kurdish and this name was mostly applied to nomad Kurdish tribes in the region. Minorsky thus leaves space for a possible Arabic influence on the tribe, although they are generally considered to be Kurdish. Furthermore, Minorsky states that the rulers of the tribe could have given their name to it. In other words, it is possible that the Rewend/Rawadiya rulers were of Arab origin, and arrived in the Dvin region in 758 CE from the Arbela (modern Arbil) region, whereas we know that many rulers claimed of Arabic origin despite not being Arab or historians claimed as such. The full name of

is "Al-Malik al-Nasir Salah al-Din Abu'l Muzzafar Yusuf ibn Ayyub al-Tikriti al-Kurdi", which clearly shows that Najm al-Din Ayyub and

were Kurdish, "al-Kurdi" refers to his Kurdish ethnic origin. Most of their loyal companians as well as jurists were from the Kurdish region of Hakkari also known as Colemerg or Julamerk in some western history books. Further it should be considered that Vladimir Minorsky's research was based upon subjective writings of Kurdish medieval historian Ibn Athir. The family were closely connected to the

Shaddadid The Shaddadids were a Kurdish Sunni Muslim dynasty. who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951 to 1199 AD. They were established in Dvin. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they often intermarried with the Bagratuni royal fami ...

dynasty, and when the last Shaddadid was deposed in Dvin in 1130, Shadhi moved the family first to

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

and then to

Tikrit Tikrit ( ar, تِكْرِيت ''Tikrīt'' , Syriac: ܬܲܓܪܝܼܬܼ ''Tagrīṯ'') is a city in Iraq, located northwest of Baghdad and southeast of Mosul on the Tigris River. It is the administrative center of the Saladin Governorate. , it h ...

, where he was appointed governor by the regional administrator Bihruz. Ayyub succeeded his father as governor of Tikrit when Shadhi died soon after. In 1132 Ayyub was in the service of

Imad al-Din Zengi Imad al-Din Zengi ( ar, عماد الدین زنكي; – 14 September 1146), also romanized as Zangi, Zengui, Zenki, and Zanki, was a Turkmen atabeg, who ruled Mosul, Aleppo, Hama, and, later, Edessa. He was the namesake of the Zengid ...

. He participated in a battle against the Seljuk Sultan near Tikrit and saved Zengi's life when he assisted his retreat across the

Tigris The Tigris () is the easternmost of the two great rivers that define Mesopotamia, the other being the Euphrates. The river flows south from the mountains of the Armenian Highlands through the Syrian and Arabian Deserts, and empties into the ...

. In 1136, Shirkuh killed a Christian with whom he was quarrelling in Tikrit, and the brothers were exiled (Ayyub's son Yusuf, later known as

, was supposedly born the night they left). Zengi later appointed Ayyub governor of

Baalbek Baalbek (; ar, بَعْلَبَكّ, Baʿlabakk, Syriac-Aramaic: ܒܥܠܒܟ) is a city located east of the Litani River in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, about northeast of Beirut. It is the capital of Baalbek-Hermel Governorate. In Greek and Roman ...

, and when the town was besieged in 1146 by Mu'in al-Din Unur, the

atabeg Atabeg, Atabek, or Atabey is a hereditary title of nobility of Turkic origin, indicating a governor of a nation or province who was subordinate to a monarch and charged with raising the crown prince. The first instance of the title's use was wit ...

of the

Burid The Burid dynasty was a dynasty of Turkish origin ''Burids'', R. LeTourneau, The Encyclopedia of Islam, Vol. I, ed. H.A.R. Gibb, J.H. Kramers, É. Lévi-Provençal and J. Schacht, (Brill, 1986), 1332. which ruled over the Emirate of Damascus ...

emir of

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

, Ayyub surrendered Baalbek and retired to Damascus. Shirkuh, meanwhile, entered the service of Zengi's son

Nur al-Din Zengi Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd Zengī (; February 1118 – 15 May 1174), commonly known as Nur ad-Din (lit. "Light of the Faith" in Arabic), was a member of the Zengid dynasty, which ruled the Syrian province (''Shām'') of the Seljuk Empire. He reign ...

, who had designs on Damascus; when the

Second Crusade The Second Crusade (1145–1149) was the second major crusade launched from Europe. The Second Crusade was started in response to the fall of the County of Edessa in 1144 to the forces of Zengi. The county had been founded during the First Cru ...

besieged the city in 1148, Nur al-Din forced Mu'in al-Din and the Burids into a reluctant alliance. Soon Nur al-Din demanded the city be handed over to him, and Ayyub and Shirkuh negotiated its surrender in 1154. Ayyub remained governor of Damascus under Nur al-Din's rule. He was held in such honour that he was the only one of Nur al-Din's officials allowed to remain seated in his presence. Ayyub's son Saladin also took up service with Nur al-Din, and he was sent to

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

to take control in Nur al-Din's name during the period of joint crusader-

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

invasions. In 1170 Ayyub joined him there, either summoned by Saladin himself, or sent by Nur al-Din to convince Saladin to depose the last

Fatimid The Fatimid Caliphate was an Ismaili Shi'a caliphate extant from the tenth to the twelfth centuries AD. Spanning a large area of North Africa, it ranged from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. The Fatimids, a dyna ...

caliph. Saladin offered the vizierate to him, but he refused, and instead was granted

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

Damietta Damietta ( arz, دمياط ' ; cop, ⲧⲁⲙⲓⲁϯ, Tamiati) is a port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt, a former bishopric and present multiple Catholic titular see. It is located at the Damietta branch, an easte ...

, and al-Buhayrah as personal fiefs. Many of Saladin's other relatives also joined him in Egypt. Nur al-Din did not trust Saladin and his family, correctly assuming that they were consolidating power against him; Ayyub publicly supported Nur al-Din, but privately warned his son that Nur al-Din should never be allowed to take Egypt from him.

Death

Najm al-Din Ayyub was injured in a horse riding accident on July 31, 1173, and died on August 9. His death exacerbated the tension between Saladin and Nur al-Din; the latter had summoned the former to assist in an expedition against the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but Saladin returned home when he heard of his father's death. However the expected confrontation between Nur al-Din and Saladin did not occur, as Nur al-Din died the next year, and Saladin eventually took control of the whole of Egypt and Syria. According to

Baha al-Din ibn Shaddad Bahāʾ al-Dīn Abū al-Maḥāsin Yūsuf ibn Rāfiʿ ibn Tamīm ( ar, بهاء الدين ابن شداد; the honorific title "Bahā' ad-Dīn" means "splendor of the faith"; sometimes known as Bohadin or Boha-Eddyn) (6 March 1145 – 8 Novem ...

, Ayyub was "a noble, generous man, mild and of excellent character." He was also "passionately fond of

polo Polo is a ball game played on horseback, a traditional field sport and one of the world's oldest known team sports. The game is played by two opposing teams with the objective of scoring using a long-handled wooden mallet to hit a small ha ...

Ibn al-Qalanisi Abū Yaʿlā Ḥamzah ibn al-Asad ibn al-Qalānisī ( ar, ابو يعلى حمزة ابن الاسد ابن القلانسي; c. 1071 – 18 March 1160) was an Arab politician and chronicler in 12th-century Damascus. Biography Abu Ya‘la ('fathe ...

calls him "a man of resolution, intelligence and knowledge of affairs", who prudently handed over Baalbek to a superior force in return for rewards and honours. His given name was Ayyub ( Job), from which comes the

of Saladin and his successors. Najm al-Din is an honorific meaning "star of the faith".

Family and children

Ayyub had several children: * Nur al-Din Shahanshah (died 1148) * al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Shams al-Dawla Turan-Shah (died 1181) * Salah al-Din Yusuf (Saladin) (1137–1193) * al-Malik al-Adil Sayf al-Din Abu Bakr Ahmad (Saphadin) (1145–1218) *Taj al-Muluk Abu Sa'id Buri (died 1184) * al-Malik al-'Aziz Sayf al-Islam Tughtekin (died 1197) * Rabi'a Khatun (daughter, d. 1246), married (1) Amir Sa'd al-Din Mas'ud b. Mu'in al-Din Onor, and * Sitt Ash-Sham Fatima Khatun (daughter)''Women as Patrons of Religious Architecture in Ayyubid Damascus'', R. Stephen Humphreys, Muqarnas, Vol. 11, (Brill, 1994), pp. 47 https://www.jstor.org/stable/1523208

References

Sources

, ''The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin'', ed. D. S. Richards,

Ashgate Ashgate Publishing was an academic book and journal publisher based in Farnham (Surrey, United Kingdom). It was established in 1967 and specialised in the social sciences, arts, humanities and professional practice. It had an American office in ...

, 2002. *''The Damascus Chronicle of the Crusades, Extracted and Translated from the Chronicle of

''. H.A.R. Gibb, 1932 (reprint, Dover Publications, 2002) *Vladimir Minorsky, "The Prehistory of Saladin", in ''Studies in Caucasian History'',

Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press is the university press of the University of Cambridge. Granted letters patent by King Henry VIII in 1534, it is the oldest university press in the world. It is also the King's Printer. Cambridge University Pr ...

, 1957, pp. 124–132.
available online
* *P. M. Holt, ''The Age of the Crusades: The Near East from the Eleventh Century to 1517'',

Longman Longman, also known as Pearson Longman, is a publishing company founded in London, England, in 1724 and is owned by Pearson PLC. Since 1968, Longman has been used primarily as an imprint by Pearson's Schools business. The Longman brand is also ...

, 1986. {{DEFAULTSORT:Najm al-Din Ayyub 1173 deaths Kurdish Muslims People from the Ayyubid Sultanate Generals of the medieval Islamic world Deaths by horse-riding accident Year of birth unknown Kurdish military personnel 12th-century Muslims 12th-century Kurdish people Saladin