Then the year 641 AH began.
In that year: envoys traveled back and forth between al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb, ruler of Egypt, and his uncle al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl, ruler of Damascus (1). The understanding was that al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl would return to him his son al-Mughīth ʿUmar, that the detained al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb would be released from the Citadel of Damascus, and that the city itself would remain in the hands of al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl (2). Peace was concluded on those terms, and the Friday sermon in Damascus was delivered in the name of al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb. The vizier Amīn al-Dawla Abū’l-Ḥasan Ghazāl al-Muslimānī (3), minister to al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl, feared the consequences and said to his master, “Do not give this boy back to his father (4); the realm will slip from your grasp. This child is the seal of Solomon in your hand (5) over the land.” At that, the agreement was annulled, the boy was returned to the citadel, the khutbah in al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb’s name was discontinued, estrangement set in between the two kings, and al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyūb dispatched messengers to the Khwarazmians, summoning them to besiege Damascus—so to Allah we belong and to Him we return.
That same year the Khwarazmians had already conquered the territories of Rūm, wresting them from their king, the son of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn (6). The man was feeble-minded, given to playing with dogs and wild beasts and setting them upon people, until a lion bit him and he died, whereupon the Khwarazmians took over the land.
Also in this year action was taken against the assistants of Judge al-Rafīʿ al-Jīlī (7): some were flogged with clubs, their property was confiscated, and an order was issued confining Judge al-Rafīʿ to the al-Muqaddamiyya Madrasa inside Bāb al-Farādis. Later he was removed at night, taken away, and imprisoned in a cave at Afqah in the Beqāʿ district; after that, nothing further was heard of him. Abū Shāma (8) reports that he died; others say he was thrown from a height; still others that he was strangled—all of this occurred in Dhū’l-Ḥijjah of that year.
On Friday, the twenty-fifth of that month, the decree appointing Muḥyī al-Dīn as judge in Damascus was read aloud