[Then the year 565 AH began]

In Safar of that year the Franks besieged the Egyptian city of Damietta for fifty days, tightening the noose around its inhabitants and killing multitudes whose numbers could not be counted (1). They had gathered by land and by sea, hoping to gain control of Egypt and fearing that the Muslims might seize Jerusalem. King (2) Saladin therefore wrote to King (3) Nur al-Din, seeking his aid against them and asking him to send military reinforcements. For if he were to leave Egypt its people would rise against him (4), but if he ignored the Franks (5) they would take Damietta and make it a stronghold from which to strengthen themselves (6) for the conquest of Egypt. Nur al-Din (7) consequently dispatched numerous detachments to him, one after another. He then exploited the Franks’ absence from their own territories (8), marched out with his army (9), ranged through their lands, plundered their wealth, killed many of their men, and took great numbers of their women and children captive.

Among those (10) whom (11) he (12) sent to Saladin was Saladin’s father, the amir Najm al-Din Ayyub, leading (13) one of those forces together with the rest of his sons. The Egyptian army met him in the month of Rajab. The caliph al-ʿĀḍid came out to receive him in honor of his son Saladin, granting him the iqṭāʿs of Alexandria (14), Damietta, and Giza, and granting the same to the rest (15) of his sons. In this affair al-ʿĀḍid also supplied King Saladin with one million dinars, until the Franks withdrew (16) from Damietta and evacuated it, for news had reached them that King Nur al-Din had laid siege to their own lands (17).