Then came the year 579 AH.

On the fourteenth (1) of its Muḥarram, Sultan (2) Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn seized the city of Āmid (3) by negotiated surrender after a long (4) and severe (5) siege of its ruler, Ibn Nīsān (6). The latter had been granted three days in which he carried off whatever stores, money, and baggage he could manage.

When the Sultan entered the city he found vast quantities of provisions, engines of war, and weaponry. He even discovered one tower filled with cross-bow arrowheads, another containing one hundred thousand candles, and other items too numerous to recount. He also came upon a library that held one million (7) and forty (8) thousand volumes. He presented it to al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil, who selected from it a load that required seventy pack-donkeys (9).

The Sultan then granted the city, together with everything in it, to Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Qarā Arslān, for he had previously promised it to him. Someone said to him, “But the stored provisions were not included in your promise.” He replied, “I shall not begrudge them to him; he has become one of our comrades and supporters.” In its treasury there were three million (10) dinars.

The poets extolled him for this fine and gracious deed—he is indeed worthy of praise and abundant reward (11)—and among the most beautiful lines composed on the occasion (12) are these, from a poem in the Sultan’s honor:

[basit]
Say to the kings: withdraw from your realms,
For he who takes the world—and gives it—has arrived! (13)

Thereafter the Sultan marched, during the remainder of Muḥarram, to the city of Aleppo; he encamped before it, laid siege to it, and its inhabitants fought him with fierce resistance