al-Juwaynī then spoke about the sovereignty of his descendants (1) down to the time of Hülegü Khan, whom he calls Bādshāh-zāda Hülegü. He recorded the extraordinary and notorious events that occurred in Hülegü’s days, as we have already set out under “Events.” Allah knows best.
The sultan al-Malik al-Muʿaẓẓam (2) ʿĪsā ibn al-ʿĀdil Abū Bakr ibn Ayyūb, ruler of Damascus and the Syrian lands, died on Friday, the last day of Dhu al-Qaʿdah of this year. He had assumed independent control of Damascus when his father died in the year fifteen. He was courageous, [intelligent], bold, learned, and outstanding.
He studied jurisprudence in the Ḥanafī school under al-Ḥaṣīrī (3), lecturer at the Nūrīyya, and he studied language and grammar with al-Tāj al-Kindī (4). What he had committed to memory was al-Zamakhsharī’s “al-Mufaṣṣal,” and whoever could recite it by heart he would certify (5) and reward with thirty dinars. He ordered that a comprehensive linguistic work be compiled for him (6) incorporating al-Jawharī’s “al-Ṣiḥāḥ,” Ibn Durayd’s “al-Jamhara,” al-Azhari’s “al-Tahdhīb,” and other texts, and he instructed that the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad be arranged for his use.
He loved scholars and honored them. He strove earnestly in pursuing good and would say, “I adhere to the creed of al-Ṭaḥāwī.” When death approached he directed (7) that he be shrouded only in white, placed in a lahd grave, buried in the open desert, and that nothing be built over him.
He used to say, “The affair of Damietta I have set aside with Allah Most High, and I hope He will have mercy on me for it”—meaning that he had fought valiantly there. May Allah have mercy on him. In him courage [and generosity], skill, knowledge, and love for his people were combined.
Every Friday he would visit his father’s tomb and sit there briefly; when the muezzins gave the call he would proceed to the tomb of his uncle Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn and perform the Friday prayer there. He was little given to pomp: at times he would ride out alone, and some of his pages would later catch up with him on foot.
One of his companions, Muḥibb al-Dīn ibn Abī al-Saʿūd al-Baghdādī (8), composed these lines in the ṭawīl metre about him:
If those noble virtues have been consigned to the earth’s dust,
My yearning for you is by no means a passing thing.