So Aḥmad set off, unaware of what was in the letter. On the way he passed by that favourite concubine, and she summoned him. He replied, “I am busy with this letter; I must deliver it to so-and-so.” She said, “Come here, I have a need of you.” Her aim was to detain him so that he might write a letter for her, thereby fixing in the king’s mind the charge she had made against him. She then sent the sealed letter with the very servant with whom she had committed the indecency, while Aḥmad sat down to write for her.

When the commander read the letter, he ordered that the bearer’s head be struck off and forwarded it to King Ṭūlūn. The king was astonished and asked, “Where is Aḥmad?” He was sought and brought in. Ṭūlūn said, “Woe to you! Tell me what you have done since you left my presence.” Aḥmad related everything that had happened.

When the concubine learned that the servant’s head had been delivered to the king, she was overwhelmed; thinking that the king had uncovered the matter, she approached him, apologised, sought forgiveness for what had occurred between her and the servant, confessed the truth, and cleared Aḥmad of all blame. Thus Aḥmad gained favour with Ṭūlūn, who designated him as his successor (1).

Afterward Aḥmad was appointed deputy governor of Egypt on behalf of the caliph al-Muʿtazz. He entered the province on Wednesday, when seven days of Ramadan remained in 254 AH, and he treated its people with great generosity, spending on them from the public treasury and from his own charity. In some years Egypt yielded four million dinars [and three hundred thousand dinars] (2). From this revenue he built the congregational mosque, on which he spent one hundred and twenty thousand dinars; it was completed in 259 AH, though another report says 266 AH. Each day he laid a table at which both the elite and the commoners could eat, and every month he donated one thousand dinars from his private wealth.

One day his steward said to him, “A woman sometimes comes to me clothed only in a wrapper, in obvious poverty, and asks for something. Shall I give to her?” He replied, “Give to anyone who stretches a hand out to you.” He was among the most diligent in reciting the Quran and had one of the most melodious voices.

According to Ibn Khallikān (3), he put to death—by slow execution—about eighteen thousand souls; Allah knows best.

He built a bīmāristān (hospital) at a cost of sixty thousand dinars, and on the maydān (4) he spent one hundred and fifty thousand. His almsgiving was extremely abundant and his beneficence exceptional.

Later he took possession of Damascus after its emir Amākhūr in 264 AH and was likewise generous to its people. It happened that a fire broke out near the Church of Mary; he hurried there in person, accompanied by the ḥadith master Abū Zurʿah ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr al-Dimashqī and his secretary Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Wāsiṭī. He then ordered his secretary to disburse seventy thousand dinars from the emir’s treasury to the owners of the houses and properties that had burned, paying them the full value of their claims, and there remained fourteen thousand