to Ibn Ḥamūwayh, the shaykh of the Sufis, and it was later sold for one thousand dinars.
- It is related that a man once summoned him to court, and the Sultan accompanied the plaintiff to the session of the judge Kamāl al-Dīn al-Shahrazūrī. The chamberlain went in first and said to the judge, “His Highness has told you: ‘Proceed with him exactly as you would with any other litigant.’”
When the Sultan arrived, the judge placed him and his opponent on equal footing, the case was heard, and it became clear that the man had no claim against him—the property in question was in fact the Sultan’s personal possession. Even so, the Sultan said, “Bear witness that I have given it to him as a gift.”
He used to sit in the Hall of Justice four days each week, ordering that the chamberlain and the doorkeepers be removed so that everyone could enter freely. When war broke out, he would strap on two bows and two quivers,² and he never left the army to the emirs; rather, he personally inspected the soldiers and their horses. On one occasion he captured a Frank, who ransomed himself for three hundred thousand dinars. The man died soon after reaching safety, and with that money the Sultan built the bīmāristān (hospital) and the madrasa.
Imād al-Dīn says in Al-Barq al-Shāmī: “During the year of his death Nūr al-Dīn greatly increased his charities, endowments, and the construction of mosques. He abolished every source of revenue tainted by anything unlawful, leaving only the jizya, the kharāj, and the ʿushr. He dispatched decrees to that effect to all the provinces, and I myself wrote more than one thousand proclamations for him.”
He adds: “Out of the jizya he allotted himself a personal monthly stipend amounting to two thousand qirṭās, which he spent on his clothing, food, and the wages of his cook and tailor—at the rate of one dinar for every sixty qirṭās.”³