and she set down her staff and the journey came to rest, just as a traveler’s eyes are cooled by his return.

Poets praised him at the capture of Aleppo with exquisite panegyrics (1). [Their verses struck him so deeply that he declared] (2): “Never have I rejoiced at the seizure of any fortress more than at my conquest (3) of the city of Aleppo.” He thereupon abolished (4) the mukūs (customs levies) (5) and all other taxes on that city and on the rest of Upper Mesopotamia; he did the same for the lands of Syria and Egypt. May Allah reward him [for himself and for Islam] (6) with the best of recompense.

[During the sultan’s absence, while he was occupied with Upper Mesopotamia and those affairs, the Franks had sown corruption throughout the countryside, right and left; the foxes took advantage of the lion’s absence, roaming about the lair, thinking the matter no more than a mirage] (7). The sultan therefore sent word to his armies to gather (8) before him, so that, once all this was settled, he might turn upon the Franks (9) and fight them.

He had also been given the glad tidings of the conquest of Jerusalem when Aleppo fell. The Shafiʿi jurist Majd al-Din Ibn Jahbal (10) found in the commentary of Abu’l-Hakam Ibn Barrijān al-Maghribī (11), under Allah’s words, “Alif Lam Mim. (1) The Romans have been defeated” (Q 30:1-2), a prophecy that Jerusalem would be taken in the year 583 AH. He adduced several proofs, wrote them down (12) on a sheet of paper, and handed it to the jurist ʿIsa al-Hakkārī (13) to convey the good news to the sultan. But al-Hakkārī did not dare, fearing the prediction might not come to pass, so he informed Qadi Muhyi al-Din Ibn al-Zaki (14).