When he reached Hama, the envoys of the caliph al-Mustadiʾ bi-Amrillah (1) arrived bearing exalted robes of honor, Abbasid decorations, the black banners, and an official rescript (2) from the chancery confirming his sultanate over Egypt and Syria. Robes of distinction were bestowed upon his family, relatives, companions, in-laws, aides, and supporters, and the day was long remembered.

He appointed as governor of Hama his maternal cousin and son-in-law, the amir Shihab al-Din Mahmud (3). He then marched (4) to Homs and granted it to his cousin Nasir al-Din (6) [just as it had belonged to his father before him, Shirkuh Asad al-Din; after that he went on to Baalbek and then to the Beqaa] (7), and he returned to Damascus in Dhu al-Qaʿdah.

[In the same year] (8) a man from the village of Mashghara (9) in the district of Damascus—he was a Maghribi—appeared and claimed prophethood. He performed various tricks and illusions (10), feats of sleight-of-hand, and so-called nīrangī “magic doors,” and groups [of the riffraff and common folk of that region] (11) were taken in by him. The Sultan ordered his arrest, but he slipped away [by night from Mashghara] (12) to the district of Aleppo, rallying (13) every ne’er-do-well to his cause. He led astray a host of peasants—though hardly prosperous ones—married a woman he fancied from those marshlands, and taught her to claim prophethood as well, so that their tale came to resemble that of Musaylimah and Sajah—may Allah curse them whenever the doves coo and murmur, and whenever the clouds pour and drip.

In this same year the caliph’s vizier (14) fled, and his house was plundered.