Mardin, and she bore him several sons, every one of whom later ruled Mosul. That noble lady (1) would set aside her veil (2) in the presence of fifteen kings.

In the same year King Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd (3) marched on Sinjār and captured it. His brother Quṭb al-Dīn Mawdūd sent an army against him to drive him out, but they soon reached an agreement: Nūr al-Dīn ceded Sinjār to Quṭb al-Dīn in return for al-Raḥba and Ḥimṣ. Sinjār thus remained with Quṭb al-Dīn, and Nūr al-Dīn returned to his own realm. That year he also raided the Franks (4), killed a great multitude of them, and took prisoner the prince, the ruler of Antioch. The poets extolled him; among them was al-Fath al-Qaysarānī, who composed a ringing ode, opening with these lines (5):

[basīṭ metre] (6)
These are the deeds of resolve, not the boasts brandished by swords (7);
these are true acts of generosity, not the tales inscribed in books.
These are the lofty ambitions which, whenever they are proclaimed,
make both poems and sermons trip over themselves in their wake.
O son of ʿImād al-Dīn, you have grasped their summit
with a palm for which all other striving is but toil (8).
Your forefather never ceased to raise each towering height
until he built a dome whose pegs are the very stars (9).

In that year as well Nūr al-Dīn captured the fortress of Afāmiya, near Ḥamāh.

That year the ruler of Egypt, al-Ḥāfiẓ li-Dīn Allāh ʿAbd al-Majīd ibn Abī al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn al-Mustanṣir, died; authority then passed to his son al-Ẓāfir Ismāʿīl (10)(11). Aḥmad ibn al-Afḍal, son of the Commander of Armies, had already seized control of al-Ḥāfiẓ and, in Egypt, had delivered the Friday sermon on behalf of the Awaited Qaʾim of the End-Time and had inserted into the call to prayer the phrase “Come to the best of deeds” (12).

This same al-Ḥāfiẓ was the inventor of the “colic drum”: when it was beaten for someone suffering from colic, the pain and the wind that afflicted him would depart (13).