Page:The Oriental Biographical Dictionary.djvu/225

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Nur 213 Nur-uddin and 'Asaf Khan. One of the accomplishments by which she captivated Jahangir, is said to have been her facility in composing extemporary verses. After the death of her husband, she was treated with much resjaect and allowed a stipend of £250,000 a year. She survived Jahangir eighteen years, and died aged 72 in 1645 A. D., 1055 A. H., at Labor, where she was buried in the mausoleum of her husband close to his tomb ; some say, near the tomb of her brother 'Asaf Khan on the banks of the Eawi, at Labor. Hugh Murray in his History of British India, p. 230, by his erroneously asserting, that she was buried in the mausoleum at Agrah called the Taj Mahal, has misguided many others. Even so late as the year 1858 A. D., the author of the " History of the Indian Kevolt," page 109, says "that this was the mausoleum of Shah Jahan and his favourite wife Nur Jahan." Nur Muhammad, ijb^-^^. <^i^, a Sayyad of Badaon, was a learned and pious Musahnan of the sect of Nakshband. He died on the 3rd August, 1723 A. D., nth Zi-Ka'da, 1135 A. H. Nur Mauzil, tl}^ JJ^j name of a garden in Agrah, built by the emperor Jahangir, which is now called Bagh Dahra. There is a large well in the garden, so large that it is more like a tank. Nur-uddin Ahmad, Shaikh, ejJ'^lj^' surnamed Kutb 'Alam, which see. Nur-uddin Arsalan Shah, A t a b a k, cj^'^-'t jy tJoGt Jjl^ a prince of Mousal and Mesopotamia, of the family of Zangi', and grand-nephew of the famous Nur-uddin, Sultan of Aleppo and Damascus. He suc- ceeded his father, Azz-uddin Masa'ud, 1193 A. D., 589 A. H., (the year of the death of Salah-uddin). During a reign of 1 8 years, he established in some measure the declining power of his house, and compelled the minor princes of his family, to acknowledge his supremacy as lord paramount. He died 1210 A. D., 607 A. H., regretted by his subjects as a mild and beneficent ruler. His son Azz-uddin, after a reign of between seven and eight years, was succeeded by an infant son bearing the title of Nur- uddin Arsalan II who survived him only a few months. Nur-uddin 'Ali, Malik Mansur, ls^^ nji.'^^^ jj,aXio tS.iK^ tiie second Sultan of the dynasty of Tartar or Baharite Mumluks in Egypt, was placed on the throne by the Amirs after the assassination of his father Malik Moi'zz 'Azz-uddin Eibak, 1257 A. D., 655 A. H., at the age of fifteen. His short reign of two years was troubled by continual feuds among the Mamliik chieftains, and attempts on the part of the Ayyubite princes of Syria to recover the lost sway of their family in Egypt ; and the apprehension of an irruption of the Mughals under Halakii, who had taken Baghdad and destroyed the Khilafat, shewed the necessity of substituting a ruler of matured years and experience. The Amir Kutuz accord- ingly assumed the reigns of government, 1259 A. D., 657 A. H., and no more is heard of Nur-uddin. Vide Malik Moi'zz 'Azz-uddin. Nur-uddin bin-Lutf-uUah, >-ak) j^i^ better known as Hafiz 'Abrii, which see, Nur-uddin 'Ali, Malik-ul-Af zal, tj^^ u^.'^^^jy the eldest of the seventeen sons of Salah- uddin ; born 1170 A. D., 565 A. H. In the partition of his father's extensive dominions, which followed his death in 1193 A. D., Damascus and Southern Syria with Pales- tine fell to the lot of Niir-uddin ; but in the dissensions 54 which soon followed, he was stripped of his kingdom by his uncle Saif-uddin 'Abii Bakr (the Saphadin of Christian, writers), and his brother 'Usman, made Sultan of E"-ypt, 1196 A. D. Fi«^« Malik-ul-Afzal. Nur-uddin Mahmud, Malik-ul-'Adil, iiJ^^Uy, JoWl t£^Lo one of the most celebrated and power- ful of the Muhammadan rulers of Syria in the age of the Crusades, born 1117 A. D, 511 A. H., was a younger son of 'Imad-uddin Zangi, the second of the dynasty of the Atabaks of 'Ii'ak and Syria. At the death of his father, who was murdered by his own Mamluks at the siege of Jabbar, 1146 A. D., 541 A. H., Nur-uddin has- tening to Aleppo with the signet of the deceased prince, secured the possession of that city and of his father's Syrian dominions ; while Mesopotamia, with Mousal for a capital, fell to the lot of the elder brother Saif-uddin ; and the feeble attempts of Alp Arsalan, a pi-ince of the house of Saljiik, to assert his ancestral claims to the dominion of these provinces, were easily frustrated by the combined power of the two brothers. The earliest ex- ploits of the reign of Nur-uddin were in continuance of the Holy War which his father had assiduously waged against the Latin Christians of Palestine : Josceline de Courtenay, whose capital of Edessa had been taken by Zangi a few years previous, was signally repulsed in an attempt to recover it, and the Christian inhabitants, who had aided the enterprise, were put to the sword without mercy by command of Niir-uddin, who even levelled the fortifications of the town to prevent its ever again becom- ing a bulwark to the kingdom of Jerusalem. The recovery of this important fortress was the avowed object of the second Crusade, undertaken 1148 A. D., 543 A. H., under Louis VII of France and the emperor Conrad : but of the mighty hosts which they led from Europe, only a miserable and dispirited remnant escaped the arrows of the Suljiiki Turks in their march through Anatolia to Palestine, the project of retaking Edessa was abandoned as hopeless, the siege of Damascus, which was attacked by the crusading monarchs in conjunction with Baldwin III of Jerusalem, was foiled when on the eve of success by the address with which the minister of the Muslim prince Mujir-uddin fomented the mutual jealousies of the Christian leaders ; and this vast armament, which if properly directed might have overwhelmed the rising power of Nur-uddin, only served by its failure to extend and confirm it. Resuming the offensive immediately after the departure of the crusaders, he invaded the territory of Antioch, and in a pitched battle (27th June, 1149 A. D.,) routed and slew the prince Raymond, whose head was sent as a trophy to the Khalif at Baghdad ; and though he sustained a severe defeat in the following year from his ancient opponent Josceline de Courtenay, who surprised his camp, this disgrace was amply compen- sated by the captivity of that active leader, who was soon after seized while hunting by a marauding party of Turkmans, and died in confinement, while the remaining dependencies of Edessa, the fortress of Aintab, Tellbasher, Eavendan, &c., full almost without resistance into the power of Niir-uddin, whose dominions now included the whole of Northern Sjnia. Mujir-uddin was stUl the nominal ruler of Damascus and the southern portion, but the government was entu'ely in the hands of his wazir Mo'in-uddi'n Amir, whose daughter Niir-uddin had married ; and after the death of this able minister, the inhabitants, alarmed at the capture of Ascalon by Baldwin III in 1153 A. D., and dreading an attack from the Christians, voluntarily oft'cred their allegiance to Niir- uddin (1154) as the price of his protection. The weak Mujir-uddin resigned his power, and souglit an asylum at the court of the Khalif of Baghdad, which then seems to have been the usual retreat of deposed princes ; while Niir-uddin, the circuit of whose realms now encompassed on all sides by land the Latin territories in Palestine, and extended to the frontiers of the Fatimitc possessions