the retainers of Hulagu Khan (1), until he wrought against Islam and its people the atrocities already mentioned (2). Thereafter he himself was subjected to humiliation and degradation at the hands of the very Tatars whose cause he had championed; the veil of Allah’s protection was removed from him, and he tasted ignominy in this worldly life—while the punishment of the Hereafter is severer and more lasting (3).
A woman once saw him in this wretched state: during the Tatar occupation he was astride a sorry pack-horse, under guard, with a driver walking beside him, prodding the horse and striking it. She stopped (4) beside him and said, “O son of al-ʿAlqami, is this how the Banū al-ʿAbbās used to treat you?” Her words pierced his heart, and he withdrew to his house, where he remained until he died of grief [and festering resentment (5), constriction, poverty, and abasement] (6) at the beginning of Jumada al-Ākhirah of this very year, aged sixty-three. He was buried in the Rāfiḍī graveyards. With his own ears and eyes he endured from both Tatars and Muslims a humiliation beyond all measure or description.
After his death, his wicked son assumed the vizierate, but Allah seized him swiftly, as He seizes the towns when they are unjust.
One of the poets satirized him, saying:
[from al-Kāmil metre]
O people of Islam, wail and mourn in sorrow
for what has befallen al-Mustaʿṣim (7);
The vizier’s throne had once belonged to Ibn al-Furāt,
but now it has passed to Ibn al-ʿAlqami.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Ḥaydara (8), known as Fatḥ al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allah al-ʿAdl, was the muḥtasib of Damascus. He was well regarded (9) and of commendable conduct. His grandfather, al-ʿAdl Najīb al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Ḥaydara (10), endowed the school at Zabadānī in 590 AH—may Allah accept that from him and reward him with goodness.
al-Qurṭubī (11), author of al-Mufhim fī Sharḥ Muslim, is Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿUmar Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Anṣārī al-Qurṭubī, the Mālikī jurist, ḥadīth scholar, and teacher in Alexandria.