his kunya as well, and on that day he bestowed upon the people more than one thousand robes of honour; it was a memorable occasion. He appointed Ruḥ ibn al-Ḥadīthī (1) Chief Judge of Baghdad on Friday, the twenty-first of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, and presented the vizier—the grand master ʿAḍud al-Dīn (2)—with a splendid robe. A ceremonial kettledrum (3) was beaten at his gate at three set times: dawn, sunset, and the night prayer. He commissioned seventeen emirs from among the mamluks (4), and he allowed the preachers to resume their sermons after they had been banned for a long period. Thereafter, however, he greatly restricted public access to himself (5).

Among the verses (6) composed by ʿImād the Secretary when the glad tidings of al-Mustaḍīʾ’s accession reached them while they were in the region of Mosul (7) are:

—from the khafīf metre—
“The age has gleamed with al-Mustaḍīʾ—
heir to the mantle, cousin of the Prophet.
He has come with truth, with sacred law, with justice;—
welcome indeed is this coming! (8)
So congratulations to the people of Baghdad: they have won,
after hardship, every ease and felicity.
A radiant one he was even in the darkest times;
how much brighter is his return in a luminous age! (9)”

In the same year, Nūr al-Dīn [Maḥmūd ibn Zankī] (10) marched on al-Raqqa and seized it, as well as (11) Nisibin, al-Khabur, and Sinjar. He handed these towns over to his son-in-law—his nephew—ʿImād (12) al-Dīn [Zankī ibn Mawdūd] (13). He then proceeded to Mosul, remained there for twenty-four days, and confirmed its rule, together with the Jazīra, in the hands of his nephew Sayf al-Dīn Ghāzī ibn Quṭb al-Dīn Mawdūd. He married him to his other daughter, ordered the reconstruction and expansion of the city’s congregational mosque, and personally supervised the laying of its foundations (14).