At the death of Zengi, his possessions were divided between his sons:
Nur al-Din received
Aleppo and Saif al-Din Ghazi
Mosul, while Qutb al-Din Mawdud received the emirate of
Homs. After the death of Saif al-Din Ghazi in 1149, Qutb al-Din Mawdud was the first to arrive in Mosul and have himself recognized as emir;
Nur al-Din, who desired to add the city to his lands, occupied
Tal Afar and
Sinjar, preparing to attack his brother and occupy
Mosul. Only the intervention 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 al-Din to renounce to the expedition and to reconcile with his brother. Qutb al-Din Mawdud participated to the
Siege of Baghdad (1157) in a coalition with the armies of the Seljuq Sultan
Muhammad of Hamadan. It was the last
Seljuq attempt to capture
Baghdad from the
Abbasids, but Caliph
al-Muqtafi successfully defended his capital against the coalition. During his reign in Mosul, Qutb held the Seljuq prince, Suleiman-Shah b. Muhammad b. Malik Shah, as a prisoner until 1160. In 1164,
Shirkuh, a general of Nur al-Din, fought King
Amalric I of Jerusalem for the control of
Egypt. When he found himself in a weak situation, Nur al-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 al-Din Mawdud tried to conquer that city; but he was pushed back by Nur al-Din, who had promised to defend Arslan's successors. Qutb al-Din Mawdud died in September 1170. He had designed as successor his second son
Sayf al-Din Ghazi II. ==See also==