was one of the hadith scholars; he had heard a great deal and was both trustworthy and reliable. One day a young stranger came to him and said, “I saw the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, in a dream, and he said to me: ‘Go to Abu ʿAli ibn Shadhan, ask about him, and convey my greeting to him.’” The youth then departed.

The shaykh wept and said, “I know of no deed that makes me worthy of this except my perseverance in reciting hadith and my sending blessings upon the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, whenever he is mentioned.” Two or three months after this vision he passed away, in Muharram of this year (1), at the age of eighty-seven, and was buried at Bab al-Dayr. May Allah Most High have mercy on him.

(2) Al-Hasan ibn ʿUthman ibn Ahmad ibn al-Husayn ibn Ṣurah (3), Abu ʿUmar the preacher, known as Ibn al-Falu, heard hadith from many teachers. Ibn al-Jawzi said: “He would preach with eloquence and was generous. He was reliable, enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.” Among his poetry:

I entered the sultan’s palace, the seat of his glory,
In poverty—no steed bore me, no foot-soldier led the way;
And I said: Consider the distance between my poverty and your dominion—
As vast as that between appointment and dismissal.

He died in Safar, having nearly reached eighty years of age, and was buried in the Bāb Ḥarb cemetery beside Ibn al-Sammāk—[may Allah have mercy on them].

[Then entered the year 427 AH]

In Muharram the rebuilding of the ʿĪsā Bridge, which had collapsed, was completed; the one who supervised the expenditure was Shaykh Abū ʾl-Hasan al-Qudūrī the Ḥanafī.

That year, and in the period that followed, the affair of the ʿayyārīn worsened: they broke into houses, and their evil and depredations multiplied.

In the same year the ruler of Egypt, al-Ẓāhir li-Iʿzāz Dīn Allāh Abū ʾl-Hasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥākim ibn al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Maʿadd al-Fāṭimī, died at the age of thirty-three years and some months. His reign had lasted sixteen years and nine months, and his conduct was good. After him his son al-Mustanṣir took power at the age of seven; his name was Maʿadd and his kunyah Abū Tamīm. The burdens of the realm were shouldered on his behalf by al-Afḍal Amīr al-Juyūsh, Badr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Jamālī. Al-Ẓāhir, as mentioned, had appointed the ṣāḥib Abū ʾl-Qāsim al-Jarjarāʾī as vizier, whose arms had been severed at the elbows when