Al-Nuṣra (1), son of [al-Malik] Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Ayyūb (2), passed away in Aleppo during this year. Others also died—may Allah be pleased with them all.
[Then the year 653 AH began]
Al-Sibṭ (3) said: In that year al-Nāṣir Dāwūd returned from al-Anbār to Damascus; later he set out again, performed the pilgrimage from Iraq, reconciled the Iraqis with the people of Mecca, and then went back with them to al-Ḥilla.
Abū Shāma (4) relates: In the same year, on the night of Monday, the eighteenth (5) of Ṣafar, the jurist Shaykh Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Ṣaqr (6) b. Yaḥyā b. Ṣaqr (7) died in Aleppo. He was a learned and devout man. Among his verses—may Allah have mercy on him—(8) are the following, composed in the sarīʿ metre (9):
Whoever claims to have a spiritual state (10)
that frees him from the path of the Sacred Law,
keep far from him—do not be his mate,
for he brings harm with no benefit at all.
And the benefactor of al-Qūṣiyya (11):
(1) Biography: “Nasra,” in the supplement to al-Rawdatayn (p. 188), al-Qāmūs (s.v. nasr), Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 14, p. 736), and Tarwīḥ al-Qulūb (p. 100); in these sources he is called Nasrat al-Dīn Ibrāhīm.
(2) Manuscript A reads an-nasr (“victory”), a scribal corruption.
(3) Mirʾāt al-Zamān (vol. 8, p. 527).
(4) Supplement to al-Rawdatayn (p. 188).
(5) Manuscripts A and B read thānī (“second”), a corruption; see supplement to al-Rawdatayn.
(6) Biography: Saqr, in the supplement to al-Rawdatayn (p. 188) spelled with s (Saqr); also in Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 14, p. 743), Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (vol. 23, p. 306), al-ʿIbar (vol. 5, pp. 214–215), Nukat al-Humayān (p. 174), Ṭabaqāt al-Sibkī (vol. 8, p. 153), al-Nujūm al-Zāhira (vol. 7, p. 34), and Shudhūrat al-Dhahab (vol. 7, pp. 450–451).
(7) Edition T reads “son of Salīm,” as do al-Uṣūlain and the supplement to al-Rawdatayn. Bashār notes that both readings are correct: Salīm was his grandfather (his direct lineage being Yahyā ibn ʿĪsā ibn Saqr), but al-Uṣūlain and the supplement cite the more distant ancestor by whom one is commonly known, as is customary in biographical works.
(8) Present in T only.
(9) The couplet is found in the supplement to al-Rawdatayn.
(10) In the supplement to al-Rawdatayn the reading is “he has a need.”
(11) Edition T adds “and it was endowed by al-Qawṣī.”