In Muḥarram of that same year, strong winds swept through Baghdad, bolts of lightning flashed, and deafening thunder was heard. A thunder-bolt struck, on the western side, the minaret adjoining Awn and Muʿīn (1), gouging a breach in it; it was later repaired, and the lightning sank into the ground.

In this year the Ḥanbalīs installed their miḥrāb in the third western arcade (2) of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, despite opposition from some people. Certain emirs aided them in setting it up, foremost among them Emir Rukn al-Dīn al-Muʿaẓẓamī. Shaykh Muwaffaq al-Dīn Ibn Qudāmah (3) prayed there.

I say: Around the year 730 AH that miḥrāb was removed, and they were compensated with the western miḥrāb by Bāb al-Ziyādah, just as the Ḥanafīs had earlier been compensated for their own miḥrāb—which had stood on the mosque’s western side—with a newly built one east of Bāb al-Ziyādah when the wall in which it was set was rebuilt during the Taynkizid era, under the supervision of the mosque’s overseer Taqī al-Dīn ibn Marājil—may Allah reward him. The details will be explained in due course, if Allah wills.

In the same year the lord of Sinjar killed his brother, after which al-Malik al-Ashraf ibn al-ʿĀdil seized the city and ruled it independently.

That year, too, Emir ʿImād al-Dīn ibn al-Mashṭūb (4) betrayed al-Malik al-Ashraf—even though the latter had offered him refuge and shielded him from his brother al-Kāmil when he sought to pledge allegiance to al-Fāʾiz (5). He then spread corruption throughout the Jazīrah, so al-Ashraf imprisoned him until he died of grief, humiliation, and torment.

In the same year al-Kāmil struck the Franks stationed at Damietta with overwhelming force, killing ten thousand of them and taking their horses and wealth—praise be to Allah.

Also in that year al-Muʿaẓẓam dismissed al-Muʿtamad Mubāriz al-Dīn Ibrāhīm (6) from the governorship of Damascus and entrusted it to al-ʿAzīz Khalīl. When the pilgrims set out for Mecca—may Allah ennoble it—al-Muʿtamad served as their amir, and great good came of it: he restrained the slaves of Mecca from plundering the pilgrims (7) after they had killed the commander of the Iraqi caravan (8), Aqbash al-Nāṣirī (9). Aqbash had been one of the most eminent and favored emirs in the eyes of Caliph al-Nāṣir, for he had arrived bearing robes of investiture for Emir Ḥasan (10) ibn Abī ʿAzīz Qatādah ibn Idrīs ibn