Shirkuh

Asad ad-Dīn Shīrkūh bin Shādhī (in Arabic: أسد الدين شيركوه بن شاذي‎‎), also known as Shirkuh, Shêrkoh, or Shêrko (meaning "lion of the mountains" both in Persian and Kurdish) (died 22 February 1169) was a Kurdish military commander, and uncle of Saladin. His military and diplomatic efforts in Egypt were a key factor in establishing the Ayyubid family in that country.

He was originally from a Kurdish village in Armenia near the town of Dvin. He was the son of Shadhi ibn Marwan, a Kurdish ruler, and was the brother of Najm ad-Din Ayyub, the ancestor of the Ayyubid dynasty. The family was closely connected to the Shaddadid dynasty, and when the last Shaddadid was deposed in Dvin in 1130, Shahdi moved the family first to Baghdad and then to Tikrit, where he was appointed governor by the regional administrator Bihruz. Ayyub succeeded his father as governor of Tikrit when Shahdi died soon after. When Shirkuh killed a Christian with whom he was quarrelling in Tikrit in 1138, the brothers were exiled (Shirkuh's nephew Yusuf, later known as Saladin, was supposedly born the night they left). They joined Nur ad-Din Zengi's army, and Shirkuh served under Nur ad-Din Zengi who succeeded Zengi in Mosul. Shirkuh was later given Homs, ar-Rahba and other appandages by Nur ad Din Zengi as his vassal. Ayyub served as governor of Baalbek and later Damascus, and the two brothers negotiated the surrender of Damascus to Nur ad-Din in 1154.

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