The Crusades Through Arab Eyes

The Assassins and their families were hunted down in Damascus when Tughtigin’s son, Būri, ordered the execution of their protector, the vizier al-Mazadaghāni. Būri refused to be their “puppet” (110). The surviving Assassins thus turned to the Franj for an alliance; the Assassins would deliver Damascus to the Franks for Tyre.

The historicity of this plot is debatable but possible, because the Franj already set their sights on taking Damascus, so Tyre would have provided a refuge for the Assassins who could use it as a base to target Fatimid Egypt (which resisted their political machinations). Indeed, the surviving Assassins regrouped in Palestine, where they received King Baldwin II’s support. Soon the Franj forces arrived at the walls of Damascus, but an Arab-Turkish coalition defeated them while the Franks foraged at the plain of Ghūta.

The Franj regrouped, but nature had other plans when the September rains mired their camp in mud and they were forced to retreat: “Baldwyn II definitively renounced any new expedition against the city he coveted” (111). Nevertheless, the Assassins got their revenge when they severely maimed Būri in May 1131. He succumbed to his injuries a little over a year later.

Simultaneously, another powerful opposition leader to the Franks rose out of Aleppo and Mosul: Al-Din Zangī, whom the Abbasids supported.