as well as the Quran and Arabic grammar, and he produced a commentary on the Jamiʿ in several volumes with the assistance of others.

In the year 625 AH (1) a diploma of investiture arrived from Sultan al-Kamil to his nephew al-Nasir, granting him the sultanate of Damascus. A few months later al-Kamil himself came to seize the city, accompanied by the lord of Homs and his brother al-ʿAziz. Al-Nasir called upon his uncle al-Ashraf for help; al-Ashraf marched and encamped at al-Dahsha, whereupon al-Kamil withdrew, saying, “I will not fight my brother.”

Al-Ashraf remarked, “The prudent course is for me to catch up with the sultan and placate him.” He met him in Jerusalem, and the two agreed to oppose al-Nasir: Damascus would go to al-Ashraf, while al-Nasir would retain al-Karak. When al-Nasir heard of this, he fortified the city.

That same year al-Sadr al-Bakri was dismissed from the ḥisbah of Damascus and from the post of shaykh al-shuyūkh.

During the year the courier al-Kuwayz (2) ran from Wasit to Baghdad in a single day and night, was received favorably, and received six thousand dinars and a little over twenty horses.

Work began on the foundations of the Mustansiriyya; construction lasted five years, and the supervisor of the building works was the caliph’s ustadh-dar.

A band of Tatars whom Genghis Khan had exiled in anger came to Khurasan but found it desolate; they then made for Rayy. The Khwarazm-Shah confronted them twice and was defeated. They laid siege to Isfahan, but the Khwarazm-Shah advanced again, broke through the Tatars, entered the city—whose people are among the bravest of men—then marched out with them, routed the Tatars thoroughly, and pursued them toward Rayy, killing and capturing along the way. Envoys from the qan arrived, saying that these men had been banished, so the Khwarazm-Shah felt reassured and returned to Tabriz.

The Franks seized Sidon, their morale soared, and the king of the Germans came to join them.