The Investiture of al-Malik al-Ẓāhir with the Sultanate by Caliph al-Mustaʿṣir Billāh

On Monday, the fourth of Shaʿbān, the caliph, the sultan, the vizier, the judges, the emirs, and the men of authority and counsel rode out to a great pavilion that had been pitched outside Cairo and took their seats within it. There, the caliph, with his own hand, dressed the sultan in a black robe of honor, placed a golden collar around his neck, and fastened golden fetters to his legs. Fakhr al-Din Ibrāhīm ibn Luqmān, the chief of the secretaries, then mounted the pulpit and read aloud to the people the decree investing the sultan with power—a document he himself had composed and written in his own hand. The sultan next rode forth in this pageantry, the fetters still on his legs and the collar about his neck, the vizier walking before him while the decree was borne above his head; the emirs and state dignitaries accompanied him on foot, all save the vizier. He processed through Cairo, which had been richly decorated for the occasion, and it was a day long remembered—one that words cannot adequately describe. Shaykh Quṭb al-Din (1) has reproduced the full text of that decree; it is lengthy, and Allah knows best.

Equipment of the Caliph for His Journey to Baghdad (2)

The caliph then asked the sultan to equip him for Baghdad, so the sultan assigned to him an imposing host (3) and provided him with everything befitting kings and caliphs—retainers, servants, a ṭablakhānah band, and the like (4). The sultan himself set out in his company toward the protected city of Damascus in magnificent pomp.

The reason the sultan left Egypt for Syria was that al-Barlī (5), as mentioned earlier, had seized Aleppo. He therefore dispatched the emir (6) ʿAlam al-Din Sanjar al-Ḥalabī, who had already taken control of Damascus (7); Sanjar expelled al-Barlī from Aleppo, took possession of the city (8), and remained there as the sultan’s deputy. Al-Barlī (9) soon returned, recaptured it from him, and drove him out in flight. Al-Ẓāhir thereupon appointed over Egypt ʿIzz al-Din (10) Aydmar al-Ḥalabī, delegated the administration of the realm to the vizier Bahāʾ al-Din ibn al-Ḥannā, took his own son Fakhr al-Din (11) with him as vizier (12), and placed in his hands the management of the armies—