and the Sultan resolved to raze al-Qumāmah (1)—the Church of the Holy Sepulchre—and level it (2) completely, so that the Christians’ (3) attachment to Jerusalem might be severed. He was advised: “These people (4) will never abandon pilgrimage to this spot even if you leave it (5) a flat, barren plain. Moreover, this land was conquered before you (6) by the Commander of the Believers ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, who left that church in their hands; in him you have a precedent to follow.” Thus he desisted and left it as it was, emulating ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, one of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and rightly guided Imams (7). He permitted no Christians (8) to remain there except four caretakers, barred the rest from it, demolished the cemeteries they had near Bab al-Raḥmah, effaced every trace of them, tore down the domes that stood there, and hastened their destruction.

As for the Muslim captives (9) who were in Jerusalem, the Sultan released them all, treated them graciously, granted them generous stipends, and clothed them in splendid (10) robes. Each then set off for his homeland, returning to his family and dwelling (11). Praise be to Allah for His favors and bounties.

Section

When Sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn had settled (12) in the Noble Sanctuary (13) the affairs we have described, he departed from it on the twenty-fifth of Shaʿbān. He ordered his son al-ʿAzīz to return to Egypt, while he himself marched with his army toward the coastal city of Ṣūr (Tyre), the only district that had held out (14). After the Battle of Ḥaṭṭīn it had been seized by a Frankish merchant known as the Marquis (15); he fortified it, organized its affairs, and dug around it a moat reaching from sea to sea (16), and he came