—namely, to sentence him to imprisonment; but al-Tunisi refused, saying, “Nothing has been proven against him.” Ibn Jamaʿah then empowered Nur al-Din al-Zawwawi al-Maliki, yet he too was at a loss. When the Shaykh—may Allah have mercy on him—saw their hesitation about jailing him, he said, “I shall go to prison and do whatever the public interest requires.” Nur al-Din responded, “Then let him be placed somewhere befitting a man of his stature.” They replied, “The government will accept nothing except a place explicitly called a prison.” He was therefore taken to the Judges’ Prison, with permission for a servant to attend to him. All of this occurred at the prompting of Nasr al-Manbiji, whose influence at court was considerable (1).

The Shaykh remained behind bars issuing fatwas. People flocked to him, visited him, and he wrote for them answers to questions that baffled the minds—issues on which no one else had been able to rule. The crowds around him swelled, and their visits grew frequent.

This provoked his enemies and constricted their chests, so they moved him to Alexandria (2) at the end of Safar 709 AH. There he was held in one of its towers for eight months, during which—may Allah have mercy on him—he continued his renowned preaching and guidance. Dignitaries and jurists would come to him, read to him, and take benefit from him.

On the eighth of Shawwal that same year, after entering Egypt and recovering his throne, Sultan al-Malik al-Nasir hastened to summon the Shaykh from Alexandria. The Shaykh departed the city, reached Cairo on the eighteenth of that month, and met the Sultan on Friday the twenty-fourth. The Sultan honored him, welcomed him warmly, and received him in an assembly (3) attended by the judges and jurists of Egypt and Syria, reconciling them with the Shaykh.