Nur ed din was a wise and just ruler, as well as a brave and fearless warrior, and a resolute defender of Islam. Being master of Mosul and Aleppo he was also master of North Syria, but in the south he lacked power through not having Damascus. Mejr ed din Abak the last of the Seljuks of Damascus ruled there, or more correctly, his vizir ruled at his commission. After Zenky’s death Damascus sent troops to retake Baalbek. Eyub made terms and surrendered the city receiving in return ten villages in that region. A few years later he became commander-in-chief of the Damascus army, a position which he held when Nur ed din marched against Damascus in 1154. Shirkuh, brother of Eyub, had meanwhile taken service with Nur ed din. When the Syrian army appeared before the city Shirkuh opened negotiations with his brother and Eyub surrendered the place to the son of his old friend. Thus Damascus abandoned its hereditary sovereign and Mejr ed din withdrew from the city. He received in exchange Emesa, then Balis, and went finally to Bagdad. An earthquake had nearly ruined Damascus, but Nur ed din restored the city and made it his capital. During his reign of twenty-eight years he captured fifty castles or more and established mosques and schools in every city of his dominion. Policy as well as religion caused Nur ed din to favor the Abbasid line instead of the Fatimids of Cairo. The time seemed to him ripe then to end Cairo helplessness, a genuine helplessness since civil war raged there between Dargham a commander and Shawer the vizir who under the Kalif were struggling for mastery. Early in 1163, the year following that in which Nur ed din had conquered Haram and taken possession of many Syrian fortresses, Shawer who had been driven from Cairo came to Damascus and promised not only to pay the cost of an invasion but afterward to yield up one third of the income of Egypt if Nur ed din would give him certain aid against Dargham. Nur ed din was not opposed to obtaining a foothold in the country, still he withheld assistance till April of the following year, when he sent his able and ambitious governor of Emesa, Essed ed din Shirkuh, with an army into Egypt. Dargham was slain and Shawer was restored to his former position. Freed from his enemy and safe, as he thought, he refused to fulfil the conditions he had made. Shirkuh enraged by his treachery seized the eastern province, Sherkiya, and the chief town, Belbeis. Shawer, who was an artful unprincipled man, false to his friends, to his warriors and to his own interests, then called in Amalric, Count of Askalon and king of Jerusalem, to act with the Crusaders against Shirkuh. The friend of the Egyptian vizir was now his foe, and the Crusaders had become the ally of their erstwhile enemy. Between Amalric and Nur ed din there was keen rivalry, for neither man would permit the other to become master in Egypt.