Al-ʿImād the secretary reports (1): In this very year King Nūr al-Dīn rebuilt the congregational mosque of Darayya, restored the shrine of Abū Sulaymān al-Darānī there, and wintered in Damascus.

In the same year, [Nūr al-Dīn] (2) besieged al-Karak for four days. From that place Najm al-Dīn Ayyūb [Saladin’s father] (3) departed for Egypt to join his son. King Nūr al-Dīn had charged him to instruct Saladin to have the Friday khutbah proclaimed in Egypt for the Abbasid caliph al-Mustanjid (4), for the caliph had written to censure him on that score. The Franks then advanced from the coastal regions to relieve al-Karak, accompanied by Philip ibn al-Daqīq (5) and Ibn al-Hanfari, the two bravest knights among them. Nūr al-Dīn set out to intercept them (6), but they veered off his route.

That year a violent earthquake struck Syria and al-Jazīrah, affecting most of the land. Many ramparts in Syria collapsed (7), and countless houses fell upon their inhabitants—especially in Damascus, Ḥoms, Ḥamāh, Aleppo, and Baalbek, whose walls and most of its citadel crumbled. King Nūr al-Dīn rebuilt the greater part of what the earthquake had destroyed (8).

Also in this year King Quṭb al-Dīn Mawdūd ibn Zangī (9), lord of Mosul (10) and brother of Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd, died at the age of forty, having reigned for twenty-one years. He was one of the best of kings—beloved by his subjects (11), compassionate toward them (12), generous to them, and handsome in appearance. He was succeeded by his son Sayf al-Dīn Ghāzī, whose mother was al-Sitt Khātūn, daughter of Tamurtāsh ibn Ilghāzī ibn Artuq, the rulers of Mardin. The man who actually directed the kingdom and held authority (13) was Fakhr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Masīḥ, a cruel and oppressive ruler.