At a glance
- Era
- Abbasid Fragmentation
- Region
- Levant & Iraq
- Review
- Draft Completeness 2/5 · Help complete it
In time
In space
Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph
Summary
In 543 AH the Franks besieged Damascus. Nur al-Din Mahmud ibn Zangi, lord of Aleppo, arrived there, together with his brother Ghazi, lord of Mosul, and the Franks were defeated. 2
After the defeat
Nur al-Din continued to fight the Franks and took back what they had seized of the lands of the Muslims. 2
The account of Shadharat al-Dhahab
Ibn al-Imad reports that the Franks camped before Damascus in Rabi al-Awwal with ten thousand horsemen and sixty thousand foot soldiers. The Muslims went out to the battle line, and about two hundred of them were martyred. A number were martyred on the second day as well, and a large number of Franks were killed. 3
On the fifth day the atabeg Ghazi and his brother Nur al-Din reached Hama with twenty thousand men. The people of Damascus were in supplication and pleading, and they brought the Uthmanic codex of the Qur'an out into the courtyard of the mosque. The source reports that a Frankish priest charged at them and was killed, the crosses were burned, the relief arrived, and the Franks were routed. 3
Connections
- Had participant
- Nur al-Din Mahmud ibn Zangi
- Occurred at
- Damascus
People and things also explored
Death of Nur al-Din Mahmud· the Cave of Qasyun (Jibril's Cave)· Qasr Hiraql / Qasr Shams al-Muluk· The Umayyad Mosque of Damascus· Ending the Ubaydid Khutba and Restoring the Abbasid Khutba in Egypt· The Fitna of the Hafiz Abd al-Ghani in Damascus in 595· al-Afdal besieges Damascus and turns back· al-Adil's seizure of Damascus
Sources
- Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p. 673
- Tarikh al-Khulafa — al-Suyuti (Dar al-Minhaj edition) , p.673
- Shadharat al-Dhahab — Ibn al-Imad al-Hanbali , p.614
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “Nur al-Din Lifts the Frankish Siege of Damascus”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/event/nur-al-din-damascus-543/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-22.