The Turkic atabeg who founded the Zengid dynasty and dealt the Crusaders their first great reversal by taking Edessa — igniting the Second Crusade.
Life
Imad al-Din Zangi (reigned 1127–1146), atabeg of Mosul and Aleppo, was the first Muslim ruler to mount a sustained counter-offensive against the Crusader states. In 1144 he captured Edessa, capital of the first Crusader county established in the East — a blow that shook Christendom and provoked the Second Crusade. Ruthless and formidable, he founded the Zengid dynasty and set in motion the reunification of Syria that his son Nur al-Din and, later, Saladin would complete.