—and Ibn al-Athir was better informed about him than anyone else, adding that his reign lasted seventeen years and eleven (1) months.

As for Abu al-Muzaffar al-Sibt, he said (2): “He was a tyrannical, unjust, miserly shedder of blood; Allah knows best his true state.” (3)

The throne (4) then passed to his son, al-Qahir ‘Izz al-Din (5) Mas‘ud (6), who entrusted the administration of the realm to his mamluk Badr al-Din Lu’lu’, to whom sovereignty would later devolve, as will be related.

Abu Shama (7) reports: On the seventh of Shawwal, construction began on the musalla (open prayer ground) outside Damascus, adjacent to the Masjid al-Naranj (8), for performing the two ‘Id prayers. Its southern wall and pulpit were demolished for renewal (9); four walls with battlements were raised for it (10), and doors were installed to protect the site from carcasses (11) and from caravans camping there. A stone mihrab was set in its qibla wall, together with a stone minbar (12), and a dome was erected above them.

Then, in the year 613 AH, two porticoes were added to its qibla side; a wooden minbar was fashioned, and a resident khatib and a permanent imam (13) were appointed. Al-‘Adil died before the second portico was completed, and all of this was carried out under the supervision of the vizier Safi al-Din (14) ibn Shukr.

He also says: On the second of Shawwal of this same year (15), the doors of the Umayyad Mosque on the side of Bab al-Barid were renewed in yellow copper and set in place.

In Shawwal as well, work was begun to restore the fawwārah (the great fountain), the shādhurwān, and the pool; a mosque was built beside them, and an imam was appointed for it.