Atabegate

Zangī's southward advance threatened both the atabegate of Damascus and the kingdom of Jerusalem, and was met by an informal alliance between the two.

The Transjordanian highlands north of Bilad al-Sharat—the Balqa and the Sawad—remained part of the Burid atabegate of Damascus.

While the sultan thus hoped to retain the nominal allegiance of the great amīrs through the atabegate, they, on the other hand, saw in it a means to establish their virtual independence.

A closer parallel was the atabegate in the powerful medieval Turkish dynasty of the Seljuks, centered in Iran. The atabeg (Turkish for "father-governor") was the Seljuk possessor of the lala; in fact, the Ottomans sometimes used the two terms interchangeably.