Biography
At the death of Zangi, his possessions were divided between his sons: Nur ad-Din received Aleppo and Saif ad-Din Ghazi Mosul, while Qutb ad-Din Mawdud received the emirate of Homs. After the death of Saif ad-Din Ghazi in 1149, Qutb ad-Din Mawdud was the first to arrive in Mosul, being able to have himself recognized as emir; Nur ad-Din, who desired to add the city to his lands, occupied Homs and Sinjar, preparing to attack his brother. Only the intervetion of veterans of the Aleppo army, who refused to take part in the fratricide war which would weaken the effort against the Crusaders and the emirate of Damascus, forced Nur ad-Din to renounce to the expedition and to reconcile with his brother.
In 1164, Shirkuh, a general of Nur ad-Din, fought King Amalric I of Jerusalem for the control of Egypt. When he found himself in a weak situation, Nur ad-Din launched an expedition against the Principality of Antioch to divert the Christian forces. The Artuqid emirs of Mardin and Diyarbakır, as well as Mawdud, joined him in the attack, which turned to be successful: the towns of Harim and Banias were captured, and Amalric had to abandon Egypt. For the same reason, Mawdud helped his brother in the County of Tripoli in 1167.
At the beginning of 1168, Kara Arslan, the Artuqid emir of Hasankeyf, died, and Qutb ad-Din Mawdud tried to conquer that city; but he was pushed back by Nur ad-Din, who had promised to defend Arslan's successors.
Qutb ad-Din Mawdud died in September 1170. He had designed as successor his second son Ghazi II Saif ud-Din.
Read more about this topic: Qutb Ad-Din Mawdud
Famous quotes containing the word biography:
“In how few words, for instance, the Greeks would have told the story of Abelard and Heloise, making but a sentence of our classical dictionary.... We moderns, on the other hand, collect only the raw materials of biography and history, “memoirs to serve for a history,” which is but materials to serve for a mythology.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Had Dr. Johnson written his own life, in conformity with the opinion which he has given, that every man’s life may be best written by himself; had he employed in the preservation of his own history, that clearness of narration and elegance of language in which he has embalmed so many eminent persons, the world would probably have had the most perfect example of biography that was ever exhibited.”
—James Boswell (1740–95)
“A great biography should, like the close of a great drama, leave behind it a feeling of serenity. We collect into a small bunch the flowers, the few flowers, which brought sweetness into a life, and present it as an offering to an accomplished destiny. It is the dying refrain of a completed song, the final verse of a finished poem.”
—André Maurois (1885–1967)