In this same year,
Lu’lu’ (1) the chamberlain—who had seized control of the kingdom of Aleppo after the death of his master Riḍwān b. Tutush—was slain by a group of Turks. He had set out from Aleppo on his way to Jaʿbar when a number of his own mamluks and others along the road began shouting, “A hare, a hare!” They then shot their arrows (2), pretending they were hunting game (3), and killed him.
In this year as well, Sultan Ghiyāth al-Dīn (4) Muḥammad b. Malikshāh b. Alp Arslān b. Dāwūd b. Mikāʾīl b. Saljūq—sovereign over Iraq, Khurasan, and many other vast territories and extensive provinces—passed away. He was one of the best of kings, exemplary in conduct, just, tender-hearted, easy-mannered, and pleasant in company. (May Allah have mercy on him.)
When death approached, he summoned his son Maḥmūd, embraced him, and both wept. He then ordered him to ascend the throne; at that time [إذ ذاك] (5) he was fourteen years old. Maḥmūd mounted the throne wearing the crown and the two arm-bands, and he assumed authority. After his father’s death he distributed the contents of the treasuries to the troops—there were eleven (6) million dinars—and the realm became firmly established for him (7). The Friday sermon was delivered in his name in Baghdad and elsewhere. [His father, Sultan Muḥammad, was thirty-nine years, four months, and a few days old when he died; the khuṭbah had been proclaimed for him in Baghdad on several occasions, though his brother Barkiyārūq had challenged him, until the kingdom finally settled in his hands up to this year. (May Allah have mercy on him and ennoble his resting-place.)] (8)
Also in this year there was born (9) the righteous king Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd b. Zankī b. Āq-Sunqur, future ruler of Aleppo and Damascus.
[Among the notable deaths that occurred this year] was al-Qāḍī al-Murtaḍā (10): Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Qāsim b. al-Muẓaffar b. ʿAlī b. al-Qāsim al-Shahrazūrī, the father of Qāḍī Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Shahrazūrī, judge of Damascus and imām to Nūr al-Dīn. He had studied in Baghdad and mastered jurisprudence there. A Shāfiʿī by school, he was accomplished, devout, and refined, with a gift for poetry. He then returned to his homeland,