Death of Nur al-Din

May 15, 1174

The pious Sunni ruler who had spent his career uniting Muslim Syria against the Crusaders died suddenly of a throat infection in Damascus, just as he was preparing to march on his own nominal viceroy Saladin in Egypt. Saladin moved rapidly to claim the inheritance for himself. Nur al-Din's death removed the one leader who might have checked Saladin's ambitions, and within a decade the Kurdish general would control the entire Muslim Near East.