there he saw the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, in a dream saying to him: “Your land has become pleasant for you, yet you have abandoned jihad and the fighting of Allah’s enemies.” He therefore rose at once to depart, and the dawn had not broken before he was already on the road (1) to Syria.

He appointed Shaykh Sharaf al-Din ibn Abi ʿAsrun as chief judge; the shaykh accompanied him in Sinjar, Nisibin, and the Khabur district, and in each of those places Ibn Abi ʿAsrun installed deputies and assistants.

In that same year: King [Saladin Yusuf] (2) dismissed the judges of Egypt because they were Shiʿi, and entrusted the office of Chief Judge to Sadr al-Din ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Durbas al-Marani (3), a Shafiʿi. In all the other provinces (4) he likewise appointed (5) Shafiʿi judges, built one madrasa for the Shafiʿis and another for the Malikis, and his nephew Taqi al-Din ʿUmar ibn Shahanshah purchased a house known as Manazil al-ʿIzz, turned it into a Shafiʿi madrasa, and endowed it with the Rawdah estate and other properties.

King Saladin also rebuilt the city ramparts and the walls of Alexandria, showed great kindness to the populace, then mounted and raided the Frankish territories around Asqalan and Gaza, struck a fortress they held at Ayla, and slew a great many of their fighting men. He next met his family as they were arriving (6) from Syria, and (7) after a long separation they were reunited.

In the same year: Saladin abolished the phrase ḥayya ʿalā khayr al-ʿamal (“Come to the best of deeds”) from the call to prayer throughout Egypt, and began preparing the Friday sermon in the name of the Abbasids.

Among the notable figures who died in that year was Ṭahir ibn Muhammad ibn Ṭahir, Abu Zurʿah al-Maqdisi (8), originally from Jerusalem, born in Rayy and resident in Hamadhan; he was born in the year one—