a small chamber within the Citadel residence⦗1⦘—the very room in which his uncle al-Malik al-Nasir Ṣalah al-Din had passed away. No one was with al-Kamil at the moment of his death⦗2⦘, such was the awe he inspired; they entered only later and found him already deceased—may Allah Most High have mercy on him.

He was born in the year 576⦗3⦘ AH, and he was the eldest of al-ʿAdil’s sons after Hamdud⦗4⦘. Al-ʿAdil bequeathed authority to him, knowing his stature, the perfection of his mind, and the breadth⦗5⦘ of his learning. Possessed of keen understanding, he loved the scholars, put to them intricate questions, and produced a fine commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. Intelligent and awe-inspiring, formidable in battle, he was just and fair, held in great esteem, and endowed with powerful authority. He ruled Egypt for thirty years⦗6⦘. In his days the roads were secure and the subjects treated one another with equity; no one dared oppress anyone. He hanged a band of soldiers who had stolen barley belonging to a peasant in the land of Amid, and when one of the rukab-dariyyah (mounted couriers) complained that his commander had employed him for six months without wages, he summoned the soldier, dressed him in the courier’s⦗7⦘ garb, placed the courier⦗8⦘ in the soldier’s attire, and ordered the soldier to serve the courier for six months in that condition, while the courier was to attend the royal procession and perform the service until the term expired. By this the people were taught the highest degree of discipline.

He also rendered a great service in restoring the port of Damietta to the Muslims after the Franks—may Allah curse them—had seized it. He blockaded them for four years until he rescued it from them, and the day he captured and recovered it was a momentous occasion, as we have already described in detail—may Allah have mercy on him.

His death occurred on the night of Thursday, the twenty-second of Rajab of this same year. He was provisionally interred in the Citadel until his tomb was completed in the northern wall of the congregational mosque—the one with the lattice there, near the maqṣūrah of Ibn Sinan, known as the Kindiyyah by the Ḥalabiyyah gate. On the night of Friday, the twenty-first of Ramadan of that year, he was transferred to it.

Among his verses, composed to urge his brother al-Malik al-Ashraf in the Jazirah while al-Kamil was besieged at Damietta, are:

O my rescuer, if indeed you are my rescuer,
then depart without restraint or delay;
Fold up the stages⦗9⦘ and the homesteads, and halt at none
save the gate of the majestic King al-Ashraf.