the servant (1) affirms that the churches are reverting and will stand again as mosques, and that the very place where people once proclaimed, “God is the third of three,” is today the place where they proclaim, “God (2) is One.” At times he renews his gratitude to God with an outpouring from his tongue, and at other times with an outpouring from his eyelids (3). May God reward Joseph well for his release from the prison, and the mamluks are still awaiting their master’s command: everyone who used to plan on entering the bathhouse of Damascus now relies on entering the bathhouse of Tiberias.

Among the poems composed on this occasion (4):
[Basit metre]
Those are the deeds of true nobility, not merely two bowls of milk;
this is a conquest indeed—not the lands of Oman and Yemen. (5)
And that is a sword in truth—not the sword of Ibn Dhi-Yazan.

He then said: regarding this victory the tongues still have (6) a long, resounding roar (7) and words of solemn grandeur.

Account of the conquest of Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) in this year and its rescue from the hands of the Christians after ninety-two years (8)

When the sultan had taken possession of the blessed sites surrounding Jerusalem and the nearby coastal towns previously mentioned (9), he ordered the armies to assemble; the detachments that had been scattered throughout the provinces in search of spoils were reunited (10). With those victorious forces (11) and their mighty, crushing banners he marched toward the noble Jerusalem. He encamped to the west of the city on Sunday, the fifteenth of Rajab of that year—583 AH. The Franks, may God curse them, had fortified the walls with fighting men (12); they numbered sixty thousand.