An Arab-Syrian Gentleman and Warrior in the Period of the Crusades

subduing Shayzar.
of that castle.
INTRODUCTION 5
Hence the strategic importance of the position
In the year 17 a.h. (638 a.d.) abu-'Ubaydah, the conqueror
of Syria for the Moslem Arabs, received the capitulation of Shayzar,
whose people "went out to meet him, bowing before him and
accompanied by players on the tambourines and singers," 3
the town for many centuries after that passed, like a football,
from Arab to Byzantine and from Byzantine to Arab hands.
but
the year 999 Basil II (976-1025) subdued it, and for the next
eighty-one years it remained in Byzantine possession.
About 1025 §alih al-Mirdasi, the governor of Aleppo, granted
the Munqidhites, of the tribe of
around Shayzar.
In
banu-Kinanah, the feudal land
In 1041 we find a Munqidhite, Muqallad, ruling
over Kafartab. Later his successor, abu-al-Mutawwaj Muqallad
ibn-Nasr, extended his territory down to the Orontes and probably
built the Citadel of the Bridge (Hisn al-Jisr) at the bridgehead
below Shayzar; but the town itself, Shayzar, remained in the
hands of the Byzantines until December 19, 1081, when 'Izz-al-
Dawlah Sadid-al-Mulk (the grandfather of Usamah) succeeded in
acquiring it from the Emperor Alexius Comnenus. This Sadld-al-
Mulk was therefore the real founder of the Munqidhite dynasty
in Shayzar. Upon his death in the following year, he was succeeded
by his pious son, 'Izz-al-Dawlah abu-al-Murhaf Nasr, a peaceful
and art-loving prince, under whom the territory of Shayzar included
for a time Afamiyah, Kafartab and al-Ladhiqiyyah by the
sea. Even at that time the Byzantines had not ceased to cast a
covetous eye on Shayzar; for we find them during his rule besieging
the castle more than once, but always unsuccessfully.
Abu-al-Murhaf died childless in
1098 and the lordship of the
castle passed to his younger brother, Majd-al-Din abu-Salamah
Murshid (1068-1137), the father of Usamah. But this pious man,
who was more interested in the hunt and calligraphy than in
politics and government, declined in favor of his youngest brother,
'Izz-al-Din abu-al-'Asakir Sultan, with a remark which gives us
a clue to his whole character: "I shall not, by Allah, accept the
lordship, as I would rather make my exit from this world in the same
* Al-Baladhuri, in Philip K Hitti, Origins of the Islamic State (Columbia University
Press, 1916), pp 201-2.