to the sultan (1) to intercede for him, but ʿUmārah imagined that he was speaking (2) against him and declared, “My lord the sultan, do not listen to him!” Al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil grew angry and left the palace. The sultan said to him, “He was only pleading for you (3),” whereupon ʿUmārah was seized by bitter remorse. When he was led off to be crucified, he passed (4) by the house of al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil; he asked to see him, but the judge kept out of sight. At that he recited:

[Majzūʾ al-Kāmil]

(5) ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (6) has veiled himself… truly, deliverance is the marvel!

Ibn Abī Ṭayy reports: Those who were crucified were:

1 – Al-Faḍl (7) ibn Kāmil the judge, namely Abū al-Qāsim Hibat Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Kāmil, Chief Judge of Egypt in the Fatimid era, surnamed Fakhr al-Umanaʾ. According to al-ʿImād al-Kātib he was the first to be crucified. He was renowned for virtue and literary refinement, and he composed graceful verse; among it are the following lines addressed to a young tailor (8):

[Muḫallaʿ al-Basīṭ]
O mender of every rent in cloth,
O slender fawn (9) whose love is my creed,
Perhaps the hand of union will stitch together
What the rending of separation has torn from my heart.

2 – Ibn ʿAbd al-Qawī (10), the Chief Missionary (dāʿī al-duʿāt). He knew the palace’s hidden treasures, so he was tortured to make him reveal them (11); he refused, died under the torment, and the treasures’ whereabouts were lost.