His companions began visiting him in secret; later they did so openly. The authorities therefore sent him off by the royal post to Alexandria, imprisoned him in one of its towers, and more than once rumors (1) circulated that he had been killed or had drowned.

When the Sultan—may God aid him—returned from al-Karak and had wiped out his adversaries, he promptly summoned the Shaykh to Cairo with honor. He met with him, conversed with him, even spoke to him privately in the presence of the judges and dignitaries, and increased his esteem for him.

Afterward the Shaykh took up residence in a house and again met with the Sultan. Yet the Shaykh was not a courtier, nor did he follow their formal protocols, so the Sultan (2) ceased to meet with him. When the Sultan set out to relieve al-Raḥba from the enemy, the Shaykh went to Damascus in the year 712 AH (3). Further events and ordeals then took place. That concludes his narrative.

[Detailed account of the Shaykh’s ordeal over the “Ḥamawiyya”]

Shaykh ʿAlam al-Dīn said: In Rabiʿ al-Awwal of the year 698 AH (4) a trial befell the Imam, Shaykh al-Islam Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya, in Damascus. It began at the very start of the month, became public on the fifth, and lasted until the month’s end.

Its summary is that he had written a reply—at the request of the people of Hama—concerning the divine attributes, in which he set out the doctrine of the early generations, preferring it to that of the scholastic theologians; shortly before that he had rejected