unique among historical works; he listened to hadith and conveyed it to others, and he was well-versed in grammar and philology. He endowed his entire library to the Ibn Jarda Mosque in Baghdad. His death (1) occurred in Shaʿban, when he was a little over eighty years old—may Allah the Exalted have mercy upon him (2).

Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Qasim (3), Abū al-Faḍl, Chief Judge of Damascus, Kamāl al-Dīn al-Shahrazūrī al-Mawṣilī. In Damascus he established a Shafiʿi school, and he built another in Nisibin. He was learned, devout, trustworthy, reliable, and scrupulous. Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd ibn Zangī appointed him to the judiciary in Damascus and, as Ibn al-Saʿī relates, even made him his vizier. Nūr al-Dīn would send him on diplomatic missions. On one occasion he wrote at the very top (4) of a petition to the caliph al-Muqtafī (5): “Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah, the Messenger,” whereupon the caliph wrote beneath it: “peace and blessings be upon him.”

I remark: Nūr al-Dīn entrusted to him the oversight of the congregational mosque, the mint, and the city walls (6); he also commissioned him to build the hospital, schools, and other major projects—may Allah Most High have mercy on him. He died in Muḥarram of this year in Damascus.

The preacher Shams al-Dīn, son of the vizier Abū al-Maḍā—preacher of Egypt and himself the son of its vizier: he was the first to deliver the Friday sermon in the Egyptian domains on behalf of the Abbasid caliph al-Mustadīʾ bi-Amr Allah, acting on the order of al-Malik al-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb. He subsequently enjoyed great favor with Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, who appointed him ambassador between himself and kings and caliphs. A respected, obeyed, generous, and much-praised dignitary, poets and men of letters would recite before him. Al-Nāṣir later replaced (7) him in the ambassadorship and in conveying letters with Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn (8), son of the Chief Judge al-Shahrazūrī, by royal decree. It was a formally established post (9). May Allah Most High have mercy on him (10) and on us through His grace and generosity.