for his paternal great-grandfather, Shaykh Abu ʿUthman al-Sabuni, was one of the renowned imams (1). He is called “al-Maḥmūdī” because that grandfather was a close companion of Sultan Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad (2) ibn Malikshah. Shaykh Kamal al-Din later came to Syria during the reign of Sultan Nūr al-Din Maḥmūd ibn Zangi, who honored and esteemed him. He then traveled on to Egypt and settled there, where Ṣalāḥ al-Din also treated him with respect and endowed (3) for him and for his descendants a tract of land that remains in their possession to this day. May Allah Most High have mercy on him (4).
• The eminent emir Saʿd al-Din Masʿud ibn Muʿin al-Din Unur (5): he was one of the leading commanders in the days of Nūr al-Din and Ṣalāḥ al-Din, and he was the brother of al-Sitt Khātūn. When Ṣalāḥ al-Din married her, he in turn married Ṣalāḥ al-Din’s sister al-Sitt Rabīʿa (6) Khātūn bint Ayyūb, after whom the Ṣāḥibiyya Madrasa (7) at the foot of the Citadel—reserved for the Ḥanbalīs—is named. She lived to an advanced age and died in 643 AH (8), the last surviving child begotten by Ayyūb himself. As for Saʿd al-Din, he died in Damascus in the month of Jumādā al-Ākhira from a wound he had received while besieging Mayyāfāriqīn (9). May Allah Most High, by His grace and generosity, have mercy on him and on us.
…al-Din, Abu al-Thanaʾ. Abu Shama provides his biography in al-Rawdatan (vol. 2, p. 68), saying:
“In this year died in Egypt in Shaʿban the Shaykh Jamal al-Din, Abu al-Fath, Abu al-Thanaʾ, Abu Muhammad, Maḥmūd ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Mahmūdī, known as Ibn al-Ṣabūnī. He was buried in Sariyya in al-Qarāfa. He was born in Baghdad in 500 AH. His maternal grandfather was Shaykh al-Islām Abu al-ʿUthmān Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣabūnī, from whom he took the name Ibn al-Ṣabūnī. His paternal grandfather had accompanied Sultan Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad ibn Malikshāh, hence the nisba al-Mahmūdī.
Ibn al-Ṣabūnī came to Damascus during the reign of al-Malik al-ʿĀdil Nūr al-Din Maḥmūd ibn Zankī (may Allah have mercy on him). He met him, lodged with him, and asked permission to reside in Damascus. He replied that his intention was to visit the Imam al-Shāfiʿī in Egypt, so he provided for his journey and sent him with the entourage of Emir Najm al-Din Ayyūb, father of Ṣalāḥ al-Din, in the year he departed for his son in Egypt. A strong companionship and great affection developed between them: he could not bear to be apart from him even for an hour and would hasten to join him. When his son al-Nāṣir Ṣalāḥ al-Din (may Allah have mercy on him) assumed rule over Egypt, he did not allow Ibn al-Ṣabūnī to return to al-Shām and endowed him with a waqf in Egyptian lands and its ʿaqība, which remain in their possession to this day.”
Bashar says: “He has a biography in Takmila al-Mundhirī (in the unpublished section, MS preserved in the Royal Library in Marrakesh, folio 6) and in Tarīkh al-Islām (vol. 12, pp. 742–743), where he is named: Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad, Abu al-Fath al-Mahmūdī al-Baghdādī.”
(1) In the printed edition: al-Mashhūrīn.
(2) His biography appears earlier under the events of 525 AH in this volume.
(3) Manuscript A reads wa-waqafa (“and endowed”).
(4) Not found in manuscript B.
(5) His biography is also found in al-Rawdatan (vol. 2, p. 67), Meraʾat al-Zamān (vol. 8, p. 385), and Tarīkh al-Islām (vol. 12, p. 726).
(6) The same biography appears in the footnote of al-Rawdatan (p. 177), in Wafayāt al-Aʿyān (vol. 4, pp. 120–121), in Abu al-Fidāʾ (vol. 3, p. 174), and in al-ʿIbar, Beirut ed. (vol. 3, p. 245).
(7) In the printed edition: al-Ṣāliḥiyya; Munādamat al-Aṭlāl (p. 237). al-Ṣafḥ refers to the footslope of Qasiyūn.
(8) Printed as “wa-sabʿumiyya” (“and seven hundred”), which is a scribal error.
(9) “Mayya Farqīn”: one of the most renowned towns in the Diyar Bakr region.