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Crusader Invasions Of Egypt, 1163–1169
Egypt was repeatedly invaded from 1163 to 1169 by King Amalric of Jerusalem, who wished to strengthen its position in the Levant by taking advantage of the weakness of the Fatimid Caliphate. The invasions began as part of a succession crisis in the caliphate, which began to crumble under the pressure of Muslim Syria ruled by the Zengids and the Christian Crusader states. While one side called for help from the emir of Syria, Nur ad-Din Zengi, the other called for Crusader assistance. As the war progressed, however, it became a war of conquest. A number of Syrian campaigns into Egypt were stopped short of total victory by the aggressive campaigning of King Amalric. Even so, the Crusaders generally speaking did not have things go their way, despite several sackings. A combined Byzantine–Crusader siege of Damietta failed in 1169, the same year that Saladin took power in Egypt as vizier. In 1171, Saladin became sultan of Egypt and the crusaders thereafter turned their attention to ...
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Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding territories from Muslim rule. Beginning with the First Crusade, which culminated in the Siege of Jerusalem (1099), capture of Jerusalem in 1099, these expeditions spanned centuries and became a central aspect of European political, religious, and military history. In 1095, after a Byzantine request for aid,Helen J. Nicholson, ''The Crusades'', (Greenwood Publishing, 2004), 6. Pope Urban II proclaimed the first expedition at the Council of Clermont. He encouraged military support for List of Byzantine emperors, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos, AlexiosI Komnenos and called for an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Across all social strata in Western Europe, there was an enthusiastic response. Participants came from all over Europe and had a ...
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Dirgham
Abu'l-Ashbāl al-Ḍirghām ibn ʿĀmir ibn Sawwār al-Lukhamī () () was an Arab military commander in the service of the Fatimid Caliphate. An excellent warrior and model cavalier, he rose to higher command and scored some successes against the Kingdom of Jerusalem as well as against internal rebellions. Despite his close personal ties to the viziers Tala'i ibn Ruzzik and his son Ruzzik ibn Tala'i, he joined Shawar when the latter rebelled against Ruzzik and seized the vizierate. Nine months later, Dirgham betrayed Shawar as well and expelled him from the capital, becoming vizier himself on 31 August 1163. Amidst yet another Crusader invasion in 1164, Dirgham clashed with Shawar, who had gained the support of Syrian troops led by Shirkuh. Deserted by most of his troops, Dirgham was killed sometime in May–August 1164 by Shawar's army. Life Dirgham was of Arab origin, and his '' nisbas'' of ''al-Lakhmī'' and ''al-Mundhirī'' possibly indicate descent from the pre-Islamic La ...
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Palestine (region)
The region of Palestine, also known as historic Palestine, is a geographical area in West Asia. It includes the modern states of Israel and Palestine, as well as parts of northwestern Jordan in some definitions. Other names for the region include Canaan, the Promised Land, the Land of Israel, or the Holy Land. The earliest written record Timeline of the name Palestine, referring to Palestine as a geographical region is in the ''Histories (Herodotus), Histories'' of Herodotus in the 5th century BCE, which calls the area ''Palaistine'', referring to the territory previously held by Philistia, a state that existed in that area from the 12th to the 7th century BCE. The Roman Empire conquered the region and in 6 CE established the province known as Judaea (Roman province), Judaea. In the aftermath of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE), the province was renamed Syria Palaestina. In 390, during the Byzantine period, the region was split into the provinces of Palaestina Prima, Pal ...
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First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the Middle Ages. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Muslim conquest of the Levant, Islamic rule. While Jerusalem had been under Muslim rule for hundreds of years, by the 11th century the Seljuk Empire, Seljuk takeover of the region threatened local Christian populations, pilgrimages from the West, and the Byzantine Empire itself. The earliest initiative for the First Crusade began in 1095 when List of Byzantine emperors, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos requested military support from the Council of Piacenza in the empire's conflict with the Seljuk-led Turks. This was followed later in the year by the Council of Clermont, during which Pope Urban II supported the Byzantine request for military assistance and also urged faithful Christians to undertake an armed pilgrimage to Jerusalem. This call was met ...
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Siege Of Jerusalem (1187)
The siege of Jerusalem lasted from 20 September to 2 October 1187, when Balian of Ibelin surrendered the city to Saladin. Earlier that summer, Saladin had defeated the kingdom's army and conquered several cities. Balian was charged with organizing a defense. The city was full of refugees but had few soldiers. Despite this fact the defenders managed to repulse several attempts by Saladin's army to take the city by storm. Balian bargained with Saladin to buy safe passage for many, and the city was peacefully surrendered with limited bloodshed. Though Jerusalem fell, it was not the end of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as the capital shifted first to Tyre and later to Acre after the Third Crusade. Latin Christians responded in 1189 by launching the Third Crusade led by Richard the Lionheart, Philip Augustus, and Frederick Barbarossa separately. In Jerusalem, Saladin restored Muslim holy sites and generally showed tolerance towards Christians; he allowed Orthodox and Eastern Christia ...
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Damietta
Damietta ( ' ) is a harbor, port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the Damietta branch, an eastern distributary of the Nile Delta, from the Mediterranean Sea, and about north of Cairo. It was a Catholic Diocese, bishopric and is a multiple titular see. It is also a member of the UNESCO Global Network of Learning Cities. Etymology The modern name of the city comes from its Coptic name Tamiati ( ), which in turn most likely comes from Ancient Egyptian language, Ancient Egyptian (, "mooring, port, town") and :wikt:𓊖, t:O49 (), a determinative used for towns and cities, although al-Maqrizi suggested a Syriac language, Syriac etymology. History Mentioned by the 6th-century geographer Stephanus of Byzantium, the city was called ''Tamíathis'' () in the Hellenistic period. Under the Rashidun Caliphate, Rashid caliph Umar (579–644), the Arabs took the city and successfully resisted the attempts by the Byzantine Empire to recover ...
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Byzantine
The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th centuryAD, it endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. The term 'Byzantine Empire' was coined only after its demise; its citizens used the term 'Roman Empire' and called themselves 'Romans'. During the early centuries of the Roman Empire, the western provinces were Latinised, but the eastern parts kept their Hellenistic culture. Constantine I () legalised Christianity and moved the capital to Constantinople. Theodosius I () made Christianity the state religion and Greek gradually replaced Latin for official use. The empire adopted a defensive strategy and, throughout its remaining history, experienced recurring cycles of decline and recovery. It reached its greatest extent un ...
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Nur Ad-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 Turkoman 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. War against Crusaders Born in February 1118, Nur ad-Din was the second son of Imad al-Din Zengi, the Turcoman ''atabeg'' of Aleppo and Mosul, who was a devoted enemy of the crusader presence in Syria. After the assassination of his father in 1146, Nur ad-Din and his older brother Saif ad-Din Ghazi I divided the kingdom between themselves, with Nur ad-Din governing Aleppo and Saif ad-Din Ghazi establishing himself in Mosul. The border between the two new kingdoms was formed by the Khabur River. Almost as soon as he began his rule, Nur ad-Din attacked the Principality of Antioch, seizing several castles in the north of Syria, while at the same time he defeat ...
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Crusader States
The Crusader states, or Outremer, were four Catholic polities established in the Levant region and southeastern Anatolia from 1098 to 1291. Following the principles of feudalism, the foundation for these polities was laid by the First Crusade, which was proclaimed by the Latin Church in 1095 in order to reclaim the Holy Land after it was lost to the 7th-century Muslim conquest. From north to south, they were: the County of Edessa (10981150), the Principality of Antioch (10981268), the County of Tripoli (11021289), and the Kingdom of Jerusalem (10991291). The three northern states covered an area in what is now southeastern Turkey, northwestern Syria, and northern Lebanon; the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the southernmost and most prominent state, covered an area in what is now Israel, Palestine, southern Lebanon, and western Jordan. The description "Crusader states" can be misleading, as from 1130 onwards, very few people among the Franks were Crusaders. Medieval and modern write ...
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Zengids
The Zengid or Zangid dynasty, also referred to as the Atabegate of Mosul, Aleppo and Damascus (Arabic: أتابكة الموصل وحلب ودمشق), or the Zengid State (Old Anatolian Turkish: , Modern Turkish: ; ) was initially 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. The Zengid ''Atabegate'' became famous in the Islamic world for its successes against the Crusaders, and for being the ''Atabegate'' from which Saladin originated. Following the demise of the Seljuk dynasty in 1194, the Zengids persisted for several decades as one of the "Seljuk successor-states" until 1250. History In 1127, following the murder of Aqsunqur al-Bursuqi, ''atabeg'' of Mosul, the Seljuk Empire ...
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Levant
The Levant ( ) is the subregion that borders the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean sea to the west, and forms the core of West Asia and the political term, Middle East, ''Middle East''. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is equivalent to Cyprus and a stretch of land bordering the Mediterranean Sea in Western AsiaGasiorowski, Mark (2016). ''The Government and Politics of the Middle East and North Africa''. p. 5: "... today the term ''Levantine'' can describe shared cultural products, such as Levantine cuisine or Levantine archaeology". .Steiner & Killebrew, p9: "The general limits ..., as defined here, begin at the Plain of 'Amuq in the north and extend south until the Wâdī al-Arish, along the northern coast of Sinai. ... The western coastline and the eastern deserts set the boundaries for the Levant ... The Euphrates and the area around Jebel el-Bishrī mark the eastern boundary of the northern Levant, as d ...
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Amalric Of Jerusalem
Amalric (; 113611 July 1174), formerly known in historiography as , was the king of Jerusalem from 1163 until his death. He was, in the opinion of his Muslim adversaries, the bravest and cleverest of the crusader kings. Amalric was the younger son of King Fulk and Queen Melisende and brother of King Baldwin III. Baldwin was crowned with Melisende after Fulk's death in 1143. Melisende made Amalric the count of Jaffa, and he took her side in her conflict with Baldwin until Baldwin deposed her in 1152. From 1154 Amalric was fully reconciled with his brother and made count of both Jaffa and Ascalon. In 1157 he married Agnes of Courtenay despite the misgivings of the Church and had two children with her, Sibylla and Baldwin. When his brother died in 1163, Amalric was obliged to leave Agnes in order to be recognized as king. He was crowned on 18 February. Amalric's reign was marked by a ceaseless struggle with the Muslim atabeg of Damascus and Aleppo, Nur al-Din Zengi, and per ...
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