In that same year Alfonso and Yaʿqūb met once more. Alfonso was routed, and Yaʿqūb pursued him as far as Toledo. He encamped before the city, battered its walls with mangonels, and was on the verge of taking it when Alfonso’s mother and daughters came out to him in tears. He was moved to pity, granted them clemency, and concluded a truce with Alfonso (1), for Ibn Ghāniyah had overrun the frontiers of the Maghrib and Yaʿqūb needed to turn his full attention to him.

In that year al-Fāḍil wrote to the judge Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-Zakī:

“Among the events that befell us was a scourge from Allah that struck while we lay asleep; many thought the very Hour had come. Let the Majlis not imagine that my pen distorts or my words exaggerate—the matter is far more serious. A cloud mass arrived, laden with deep darkness, riven by blinding lightning and tempestuous winds whose blaze grew fierce and whose gusts intensified. Thunderclaps roared, the walls shook, clashed, collided, and clasped one another, and a choking dust storm rose. People said, ‘Perhaps one heaven has collapsed upon another.’ The populace fled their homes, crying for help, their throats choked, every path to safety obscured. The turmoil lasted until the last third of the night, and a number of ships were smashed … The calamity is even harsher than I have related, and I have judged by nothing but the truth.”

In the same year (2) the Franks seized Beirut, and its governor Sāmah (3) fled.

In the year 594 AH Khwarazm Shah took possession of Bukhara, wresting it from the ruler of Khata after tremendous wars.

In the year 595 AH Khwarazm Shah laid siege to Rayy, for his deputy there had rebelled against him, and he prevailed.