peacock feathers, bearing the titles of al-Mustansir the Ubaydid.

Then Saladin laid siege to al-Karak (1) and was on the verge of taking it, but when word reached him that the Franks had massed against him, he broke off the siege and marched toward them. They slipped away, whereupon he proceeded to Damascus and granted Aleppo to his brother al-ʿĀdil. He then sent, in al-ʿĀdil’s stead, his nephew al-Malik al-Muẓaffar—uncle of the lord of Ḥamāh—to serve as viceroy of Egypt.

In 580 AH the Caliph proclaimed the Mashhad and al-Jawād to be sanctuaries for all who sought refuge there, a decree that brought nothing but turmoil and mischief.

Saladin took Nablus by storm—praise be to Allah—and again invested al-Karak, but when enemy reinforcements arrived he withdrew (2).

In that same year (3) ʿAlī ibn Ghāniya al-Mulaththam, lord of Mayūrqa, rose in revolt. He marched forth and seized Bajāya upon the death of Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd al-Muʾmin, and his forces swelled. He routed an Almohad army and then besieged Constantine al-Hawāʾ (4) for several months, until the Almohads relieved it. Ibn Ghāniya next moved on to al-Qayrawān, where he mustered troops and hired auxiliaries; the Banū Sulaym, the clan of Riyaḥ, and the Egyptian Turks who had served under Būzabā and Qarāqūsh rallied to him. With their aid he overran Ifriqiya, save for Tunis and al-Mahdiyya, which the Almohads held. Every brigand and criminal flocked to Ibn Ghāniya: they ravaged the land, plundered villages, and carried off captives. He had the Friday sermon pronounced in the name of the Abbasids and captured Qafṣa. The Almohads therefore closed ranks against him in 583 AH, and their sultan Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf advanced, encamped at Tunis, and prepared for battle with six thousand horsemen together with Ibn—