and on his head a skin cap worth a single dirham; the shaykh offered him the greeting of peace, but the sultan (1) did not return it out of arrogance, nor did he grant him permission to sit. The shaykh therefore remained standing beside the throne and delivered a formidable address in which he extolled the merit and nobility of the Abbasid house, adducing a hadith that forbids harming them, while the interpreter conveyed his words to the sultan.
The sultan replied, “As for what you have said about the caliph’s excellence, it is not so; when I enter Baghdad I shall set up someone who truly possesses those qualities. As for the prohibition you mentioned against harming them, I have not harmed any of them, whereas the caliph keeps a sizeable group of them in his prisons, where they continue to beget children. He is the one who has wronged the Abbasids.” With that he turned away and offered the shaykh no further answer.
Suhrawardī (2) withdrew and set out on his return. Allah, exalted is He, then sent upon the sultan and his troops a mighty snowfall that lasted three days, burying pack-animals and tents and rising almost to the tops of the standards. Men lost hands and feet to the cold, and they were overwhelmed by an affliction [al-balāʾ al-ʿaẓīm (of immense magnitude)] beyond all limit or description. Allah sent them back in disappointment, and praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds.
In this same year:
The truce that had existed between al-ʿĀdil and the Franks came to an end. It so happened that al-ʿĀdil arrived from Egypt and met with the son (3) of al-Muʿaẓẓam at Baysan. The Franks (4) rode out from Acre, accompanied by all the kings of the coastal towns, and all set off hoping to surprise (5) al-ʿĀdil. When he realised their approach he fled, for their forces were many and those with him were few.
His son al-Muʿaẓẓam said, “Where are you going, Father?” but [his father] cursed him in Persian and said, “You have parceled out the lands of Syria among your mamluks and left other men’s sons with nothing!”
Al-ʿĀdil (6) then made for Damascus and wrote to its governor, al-Muʿtamid (7), instructing him to fortify the city against the Franks, to transfer grain supplies from Darayya to the citadel, and to release the water over the fields of Darayya, Qaṣr Ḥajjāj, and al-Shaghūr. The people panicked at this, turned to Allah in supplication, and raised a loud clamour in the congregational mosque.
The sultan arrived and encamped at Marj al-Ṣuffar (8); he dispatched letters to the kings of the East summoning them to come and fight the Franks. The first to arrive (9) was the lord of Ḥimṣ, Asad al-Dīn [Shirkūh]. The populace went out to receive him; he entered through Bāb al-Faraj, greeted Sitt al-Sham at her residence by the hospital, and then returned to his own house. With Asad al-Dīn [Shirkūh] now present, the people were relieved [wa-amanu (and felt secure)]. At daybreak he set out for al-ʿĀdil at Marj al-Ṣuffar.
As for the Franks, they reached Baysan (10), plundered its grain stores and livestock, killed many people, took many captives, and then spread devastation throughout the land.