by
Damien F. Mackey
Considers the Assyrian-like C12th AD Seljuk ruler, Zengi.
Wikipedia article, “Zengi”: “Imad ad-Din Zengi Imad
ad-Din Atabeg Zengi al-Malik al-Mansur, or Zengi (var. Zangi, Zengui, Zenki or
Zanki) for short; in Turkish İmadeddin Zengi, in Arabic: عماد الدین زنكي)”.
According
to standard history, Zengi was a Seljuk Turk of 1127–1146 AD.
That Zengi, who became ruler of (Assyrian)
Mosul, was actually called “Assyrian” is apparent from this same Wikipedia
article:
Zengi against Damascus
Zengi became atabeg of Mosul in
1127, and of Aleppo in 1128, uniting the two cities under his personal rule,
and was formally invested as their ruler by the Sultan Mahmud II of Great
Seljuk. Zengi had supported the young sultan against his rival, the caliph
Al-Mustarshid. The Syriac Orthodox patriarch Michael the Great (also known as
Michael The Syrian) [1126-1199 A.D.] called him "Hziro Othuroyo/Hzira
Athuraya" (literally "swinish Assyrian"). The term
"Assyrian" (Othuroyo/Athuraya) in Syriac has homonymous meanings. So
in this sentence it meant barbarian and not that he was ethnically Assyrian.
Out of an Old Testamental perspective the Assyrians were viewed as barbarians,
evil, etc.
[End of quote]
The common Saracen name, ad-Din, seems to be most
strongly reminiscent of the common Assyrian one, iddina- (‘given’): e.g. Esarhaddon, the Greek and Biblical form of
the Akkadian name, Aššur-ahhe-iddina “Ashur has given a brother to me”.
Imad ad-Din Zengi Zengi was the son of Aq Sunqur
al-Hajib, the element Aq Sunqur being somewhat reminiscent, in turn, of Sennacherib
(Sin-ahhê-eriba in Akkadian), who was the father of Esarhaddon.
These neo-Assyrian kings, like Zengi, controlled Damascus.
Most interestingly, too, in light of my massive
historical query:
Two
Supposed Nehemiahs: BC time and AD time
an “Heraclius” appears to get a re-run. Firstly, king
Chosroes II (said to have been a Persian king) of c. 600 AD was opposed to the Byzantine
emperor Heraclius. Then, incredibly - or is it, anymore? - one named Heraclius
(var. Eraclius) emerges in c. 1128-1190/91 AD, now as Patriarch of Jerusalem,
at the time of Zengi.
We may also find a striking similarity between the death
of Zengi and the gory demise of “Holofernes” in the Book of Judith, where he is
beheaded by Judith in his tent, while lying drunk on his bed (12:16-13:8) This is
frightfully similar (except for the actual perpetrator of the deed) to
Wikipedia’s account of the violent death of Zengi:
Death
Though he continued his attempts to
take Damascus in 1145, Zengi was assassinated by a Frankish slave named
Yarankash in 1146. The Christian chronicler William of Tyre said that he was
killed by a number of his retinue while he lay drunk in his bed. William
reports that the news of his death was welcomed with the remarks "What a
happy coincidence! A guilty murderer, which the bloody name Sanguinus, has
become ensanguined with his own blood", playing on the similarity between
the Latin word for blood (sanguis) and the Latin rendering of Zengi's name.
[End of quote]
Could “Zengi” indicate, then, not a personal name, but an
epithet: “the bloody one”?
The prophet Nahum had similarly referred to the Assyrian
city of Nineveh: “Ah! City of bloodshed, utterly deceitful, full of booty …”
(Nahum 3:1).
Zengi’s father would suffer the same fate as had his son,
to be assassinated – reminiscent of Sennacherib again.
Just as in the case of Zengi, the “Holofernes” of the
Book of Judith had recently passed through the territory of Damascus (Judith
2:27), before he, too, was assassinated whilst in a drunken stupor. Obviously
the perpetrator of the bloody deed is obscure to history, “a Frankish slave”,
“a number of [Zengi’s] retinue”.
In the Book of Judith, the entire “retinue” of Holofernes’
had in fact retired for the night, leaving Judith alone with the drunken
Assyrian commander-in-chief (Judith 13:1).
The jubilation of William of Tyre at the death of Zengi “the
bloody one”, above, is reminiscent of the joy of the Israelites at Judith’s victory
(Judith 13:17-20; 14:7-10, 18-20; 15:8-12), most especially as conveyed in
Judith’s “Victory Song” (16:14-17). Moreover, the effects of the slaying of the
enemy leader were exactly the same for the invading army as were those recorded
in the Book of Judith: namely, panic and flight.
Zengi's sudden death threw his forces into a panic. His
army disintegrated, the treasury was looted, and the crusader princes, made
bold by Zengi's demise, plotted to attack Aleppo and Edessa. Mu'in ad-Din
immediately recaptured Baalbek, Hims, and other territories lost to Zengi over
the years.
Compare Judith 15:1-7, imagining Israelite leaders taking
the place of “the crusader princes”; “Baalbek”, the Book of Judith’s
“Bectileth” (2:21); “Aleppo” and “Edessa”, the Book of Judith’s “beyond
Damascus and it borders”.
Wikipedia’s account of the character of Zengi could
easily recall the tyrannical “Holofernes” (ibid.):
Zengi was courageous, strong in
leadership and a very skilled warrior according to all of the Islam chroniclers
of his day. The conquest of Edessa being his greatest achievement. These same
chroniclers however, also relate Zengi as being a very violent, cruel, and
brutal man. Muslims, Byzantines, and Franks all suffered at his hands.
Similarly, Judith will laud the renowned skill of the Assyrian
commander-in-Chief, “Holofernes”, including in her words the statement
(probably a true one) that he had no military peer: ‘For we have heard of your
wisdom and skill, and it is reported throughout the whole world that you alone
are the best in the whole kingdom, the most informed and the most astounding in
military strategy’.
According to Wikipedia, Zengi was deceitful and vengeful
(ibid.):
Unlike Saladin at Jerusalem in 1187,
Zengi did not keep his word to protect his captives at Baalbek in 1139. According
to Ibn al-‘Adim, “He (Zengi) had sworn to the people of the citadel with strong
oaths and on the Qur’an and divorcing (his wives). When they came down from the
citadel he betrayed them, flayed its governor and hanged the rest.” (Source:
Ibid. Also, Ibn Wasil, Mufarrij al-Kurub, p. 86)
“The atebeg was violent, powerful,
awe-inspiring and liable to attack suddenly… When he rode, the troops used to
walk behind him as if they were between two threads, out of fear they would
trample over crops, and nobody out of fear dared to trample on a single stem
(of them) nor march his horse on them… If anyone transgressed, he was
crucified. He (Zengi) used to say: ‘It does not happen that there is more than
one tyrant (meaning himself) at one time.’” By Ibn al-‘Adim (Source: Ibn
al-‘Adim, Zubda, vol. 2, p. 471)
“He (Zengi) was tyrannical and he
would strike with indiscriminate recklessness. He was like a leopard in
character, like a lion in fury, not renouncing any severity, not knowing any
kindness… He was feared for his sudden attacking; shunned for his roughness;
aggressive, insolent, death to enemies and citizens.” By Imad ad-Din
al-Isfahani (Source: Al-Bundari, Zubdat al-nusra, ed. M.Y. Houtsma (Leiden,
1889), p. 205)
“When he (Zengi) was unhappy with an
emir, he would kill him or banish him and leave that individual’s children
alive but castrate them. Whenever one of his pages pleased him by his beauty he
would treat him in the same way so that the characteristics of youth would last
longer in him.” By Imad ad-Din al-Isfahani (Source: The Second Crusade – Scope
& Consequences Edited by Jonathan Phillips & Martin Hoch).
[End of quote]
Compare Zengi’s presumed reputation for deception, of
going back on his word, with an incident of deception pertaining to Sennacherib:
…
Isaiah 33:7, where we learn that the
“ambassadors of peace”, apparently those who had taken the tribute to
Sennacherib, then returned “weeping bitterly”.
…
And 24:16 (cf. 21:2): “For the
treacherous deal treacherously, the treacherous deal very treacherously”. …
Sennacherib, marked as “treacherous” according to C. Boutflower
(on Isaiah), received the tribute, but now demands the surrender of the city!
Titles
The Muslim chronicler Ibn al-Qalanisi gives Zengi’s full
list of titles - reminiscent of the many of the neo-Assyrian kings - as:
The emir, the general, the great,
the just, the aid of God, the triumphant, the unique, the pillar of religion,
the cornerstone of Islam, ornament of Islam, protector of God's creatures,
associate of the dynasty, auxiliary of doctrine, grandeur of the nation, honour
of kings, supporter of sultans, victor over the infidels, rebels, and atheists,
commander of the Muslim armies, the victorious king, the king of princes, the
sun of the deserving, emir of the two Iraqs and Syria, conqueror of Iran,
Bahlawan, Jihan Alp Inassaj Kotlogh Toghrulbeg atabeg Abu Sa'id Zangi Ibn Aq
Sunqur, protector of the prince of the faithful.
[End of quote]
The neo-Assyrian kings, too, could boast a multitude of
grand titles, including Zengi’s “the sun”. Whilst the latter’s “the two Iraqs”
above could remind one of the typical Assyrian claim of “king of Sumer and
Accad”. The neo-Assyrian kings’ likening of themselves to the sun – and their megalomania
in general – could also remind one of the Lucifer (‘the Day Star’) of Isaiah
14; pride going before a very big fall. In regard to this poem’s historical
basis, Boutflower is helpful when favourably recalling Sir Edward Strachey’s
“belief that the king of Babylon, against whom the “parable” of Isa. xiv was
hurled, was a king of Assyria” - a king of Assyria, that is, who ruled over
Babylon. Compare the king of Isaiah 14’s self-deifying boast: ‘I will ascend to
heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit on the
heights of Zaphon; I will ascend to the tops of the clouds, I will make myself
like the Most High’ (vv. 13-14), with e.g. Esarhaddon’s own god-like statement:
“I am powerful, I am all powerful, I am a hero, I am gigantic, I am colossal, I
am honored, I am magnified, I am without an equal among all kings ...”.
Considerable ego-mania on display here.
This might indicate that these verses of Isaiah are no
mere poetic exaggeration, but poetically pertain to the boasts of a real king.
And they could also answer criticisms of [Judith] 3:8, that the Assyrian kings
were not inclined to self-deification.
One might even imagine the Bethulians, staring at the
lifeless head of “Holofernes” as it was lifted from Judith’s food bag – or when
it was later hanging on the parapet of the city’s wall (14:1, 11), “those who
see you will stare at you” (Isaiah 14:16) – and asking themselves, in Isaian
terms: ‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms … who …
who …?’. We gather from Isaiah’s poem that all of the king’s glory came to an
end in a moment, like the fall of a star from heaven. Moreover, the end was to
come on the field of battle (vv. 12-20). A few verses later, Isaiah will
nominate this ill-fated invader as an “Assyrian”, who will die on the mountains
of Israel (vv. 24, 25):
The Lord of hosts has sworn:
... I will break the Assyrian in my
land.
and on my mountains trample
him under foot.
So, too, did the bloody
Zengi come crashing down.
Judith
16:17:
‘Woe to the
nations that rise up against my people! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance
on them in the day of judgment; he will send fire and worms into their flesh;
they shall weep in pain forever’.
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