I add: Two qaysariyyahs were also refurbished to the east of this new goldsmiths’ bazaar in our own day. The goldsmiths and dealers in gold have taken up their shops there. Both structures are attractive, and both (1) belong to the endowment of the thriving congregational mosque.

[Among the notable persons who died this year]

(2) al-Sayf al-Āmidī: Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Abī ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Sālim al-Taghlibī (3), better known as Shaykh Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī—later al-Ḥamawī, then al-Dimashqī.

He authored numerous works in the two foundational disciplines and beyond, including Abkār al-Afkār on speculative theology, Daqāʾiq al-Ḥaqāʾiq (4) on philosophy, and Iḥkām al-Aḥkām on legal theory. Though originally a Hanbalī, he became a Shāfiʿī scholar devoted to uṣūl, logic, dialectics, and disputation. He was courteous, free of malice, often moved to tears, and tender-hearted. Various allegations were made against him—Allah knows best their truth—but it would seem that most of them are unfounded.

The Ayyūbid rulers, such as al-Muʿaẓẓam and al-Kāmil, treated him with honour, though they were not especially fond of him. Al-Muʿaẓẓam appointed him to teach at the ʿAzīziyyah (5). When al-Ashraf took control of Damascus, however, he removed him from that post and proclaimed to the madrasahs (6): “No one is to study anything but Qurʾān exegesis, hadith, and fiqh; whoever occupies himself with the sciences of the ancients I shall banish.” Shaykh Sayf al-Dīn therefore remained in his home until he died in Damascus this year, in Ṣafar (7), and was buried in his own plot at the foot of Mount Qāsiyūn.

Judge Ibn Khallikān (8) reports that he had studied in Baghdad under Abū al-Fatḥ Naṣr ibn Fitiyān ibn al-Manī (9), the Hanbalī. He then adopted the Shāfiʿī school, learning from Ibn Faḍlān (10) and others, refining al-Sharīf’s method in disputation (11) and its supplementary