and some thirty mounts or so; a jewel-studded inkstand worth twelve thousand dinars; and ten reception rooms—each room fitted with ten golden pegs, and on every peg a kerchief tied around a complete outfit of clothes; five hundred chests filled with garments and household goods, not including the beasts of burden, slaves, cattle, and sheep. The milk from his herds alone was sold for thirty thousand dinars a year (1).

I say: all of this is conceivable except the dinars and dirhams—I cannot credit that; indeed, I deem even one-tenth of it far-fetched. There is no doubt that his hoarding of such wealth weakened Egypt’s army, for in his days the Franks seized Jerusalem, Acre, Tyre, Tripoli, and the coastal districts. Had he spent a quarter of his fortune, he could have raised an army that filled the horizon and annihilated the Franks—but Allah decrees a matter already ordained.

Abū Yaʿlā ibn al-Qalansī (2) said: “Al-Afdal was sound in creed, a Sunni, of praiseworthy conduct and generous character; time has produced no one like him.”

I add: al-Baṭāʾiḥī, who held office after him, was crucified in the year 519 AH.

After the death of al-Āmir, the vizierate passed to the Commander of the Armies, Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad ibn al-Afdal. He was decisive and obeyed, a brave warrior, an able Sunni statesman like his father and grandfather. He placed al-Ḥāfiẓ under guardianship and barred him from public affairs. A Frankish mamluk belonging to al-Ḥāfiẓ then lunged at him and stabbed him to death, whereupon Yanis al-Ḥāfiẓī (3) became vizier. Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad had gone to extremes in restricting al-Ḥāfiẓ, transferring the palace treasures to his own residence and claiming they were his father’s property.