Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub, commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, he spearheaded the Muslim military effort against the Crusader states in the Levant. At the height of his power, the Ayyubid realm spanned Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen, and Nubia.
Qiwam al-Dawla Kerbogha, known as Kerbogha or Karbughā, was atabeg of Mosul during the First Crusade and was renowned as a soldier.
The Zengid or Zangid dynasty was an Atabegate of the Seljuk Empire created in 1127. It formed a Turkoman dynasty of Sunni Muslim faith, which ruled parts of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia, and eventually seized control of Egypt in 1169. In 1174 the Zengid state extended from Tripoli to Hamadan and from Yemen to Sivas. Imad ad-Din Zengi was the first ruler of the dynasty.
Imad al-Din Zengi, also romanized as Zangi, Zengui, Zenki, and Zanki, was a Turkoman atabeg of the Seljuk Empire, who ruled Mosul, Aleppo, Hama, and, later, Edessa. He was the namesake and founder of the Zengid dynasty of atabegs.
Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd Zengī, commonly known as Nur ad-Din, was a member of the Zengid dynasty, who ruled the Syrian province of the Seljuk Empire. He reigned from 1146 to 1174. He is regarded as an important figure of the Second Crusade.
Abu Sa'id Taj al-Dawla Tutush or Tutush I, was the Seljuk emir of Damascus from 1078 to 1092, and sultan of Damascus from 1092 to 1094.
Abu Said Aq Sunqur al-Hajib was the Seljuk governor of Aleppo under Sultan Malik Shah I. He was considered the de facto ruler of most of Syria from 1087. He was beheaded in 1094 following accusations of treason by Tutush I, the ruler of Damascus.
The Artuqid dynasty was established in 1102 as an Anatolian Beylik (Principality) of the Seljuk Empire. It formed a Turkoman dynasty rooted in the Oghuz Döğer tribe, and followed the Sunni Muslim faith. It ruled in eastern Anatolia, Northern Syria and Northern Iraq in the eleventh through thirteenth centuries. The Artuqid dynasty took its name from its founder, Artuk Bey, who was of the Döger branch of the Oghuz Turks and ruled one of the Turkmen beyliks of the Seljuk Empire. Artuk's sons and descendants ruled the three branches in the region: Sökmen's descendants ruled the region around Hasankeyf between 1102 and 1231; Ilghazi's branch ruled from Mardin and Mayyafariqin between 1106 and 1186 and Aleppo from 1117–1128; and the Harput line starting in 1112 under the Sökmen branch, and was independent between 1185 and 1233.
As-Salih Ismaʿil al-Malik (1163–1181) was the Zengid emir of Damascus and emir of Aleppo in 1174, the son of Nur ad-Din.
Qutb al-Din Mawdud was the Zengid Emir of Mosul from 1149 to 1169. He was the son of Imad al-Din Zengi and brother and successor of Sayf al-Din Ghazi I.
Abu Ulwan Thimal ibn Salih ibn Mirdas, also known by his laqabMu'izz al-Dawla, was the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo jointly with his elder brother Shibl al-Dawla Nasr in 1029–1030 and then solely in 1042–1057 and 1061–1062.
Abu Ali Salih ibn Mirdas, also known by his laqabAsad al-Dawla, was the founder of the Mirdasid dynasty and emir of Aleppo from 1025 until his death in May 1029. At its peak, his emirate (principality) encompassed much of the western Jazira, northern Syria and several central Syrian towns. With occasional interruption, Salih's descendants ruled Aleppo for the next five decades.
The Mirdasid dynasty, also called the Banu Mirdas, was an Arab Shia Muslim dynasty which ruled an Aleppo-based emirate in northern Syria and the western Jazira more or less continuously from 1024 until 1080.
Izz al-Din Mas'ud (I) ibn Mawdud was a Zengid emir of Mosul.
Kafartab was a town and fortress in northwestern Syria that existed during the medieval period between the fortress cities of Maarat al-Numan in the north and Shaizar to the south. It was situated along the southeastern slopes of Jabal al-Zawiya. According to French geographer Robert Boulanger, writing in the early 1940s, Kafartab was "an abandoned ancient site" located 2.5 mi (4.0 km) northwest of Khan Shaykhun.
Abu Salama Mahmud ibn Nasr ibn Salih Arabic: محمود بن نصر بن صالح المرداسي, romanized: Abū Salama Maḥmūd ibn Naṣr ibn Ṣāliḥ, also known by his laqabRashid al-Dawla, was the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo from 1060 to 1061 and again from 1065 until his death. He was the son of Shibl al-Dawla Nasr and the Numayrid princess, Mani'a al-Sayyida al-Alawiyya.
Al-Rahba, also known as Qal'at al-Rahba, which translates as the "Citadel of al-Rahba", is a medieval Arab fortress on the west bank of the Euphrates River, adjacent to the city of Mayadin in Syria. Situated atop a mound with an elevation of 244 meters (801 ft), al-Rahba oversees the Syrian Desert steppe. It has been described as "a fortress within a fortress"; it consists of an inner keep measuring 60 by 30 meters, protected by an enclosure measuring 270 by 95 meters. Al-Rahba is largely in ruins today as a result of wind erosion.
The Numayrids were an Arab dynasty based in Diyar Mudar. They were emirs (princes) of their namesake tribe, the Banu Numayr. The senior branch of the dynasty, founded by Waththab ibn Sabiq in 990, ruled the Euphrates cities of Harran, Saruj and Raqqa more or less continuously until the late 11th century. In the early part of Waththab's reign, the Numayrids also controlled Edessa until the Byzantines conquered it in the early 1030s. In 1062, the Numayrids lost Raqqa to their distant kinsmen and erstwhile allies, the Mirdasids, while by 1081, their capital Harran and nearby Saruj were conquered by the Turkish Seljuks and their Arab Uqaylid allies. Numayrid emirs continued to hold isolated fortresses in Upper Mesopotamia, such as Qal'at an-Najm and Sinn Ibn Utayr near Samosata until the early 12th century, but nothing is heard of them after 1120.
The Banu Munqidh, also referred to as the Munqidhites, were an Arab family that ruled an emirate in the Orontes Valley in northern Syria from the mid-11th century until the family's demise in an earthquake in 1157. The emirate was initially based in Kafartab before the Banu Munqidh took over the fortress of Shayzar in 1081 and made it their headquarters for the remainder of their rule. The capture of Shayzar was the culmination of a long, drawn-out process beginning with the Banu Munqidh's nominal assignment to the land by the Mirdasid emir of Aleppo in 1025, and accelerating with the weakened grip of Byzantine rule in northern Syria in the 1070s.
