had their crowns drawn together with ropes (1). Al-Nasir was then fastened to the four of them—one of his limbs to each tree (2). When the ropes were released, every tree snapped back to its place, each bearing away a part of his body (3) (may Allah have mercy on him).
It is said that this took place on the twenty-fifth of Shawwal in the year 658 AH. He had been born in 627 AH in Aleppo.
When his father died in 634 AH, he was given the oath of allegiance as sultan in Aleppo even though he was only seven years old. The affairs of the realm were handled by a group of his father al-ʿAziz’s mamluks, while ultimate authority lay with his grandmother, Umm Safiyya Khatun bint al-ʿAdil Abu Bakr ibn Ayyub. When she died in 640 AH, al-Nasir assumed full control of the kingdom. He treated his subjects well, was beloved by them, and spent lavishly—especially after he gained Damascus along with Aleppo and its districts, Baalbek, Harran, and a large portion of the Jazira.
People relate that his daily banquet (4) required four hundred sheep, not counting chickens, geese, and other kinds of fowl, all of it cooked (5) in a variety of dishes and stews (6) in addition to roasted and fried meats. The total value of what was prepared each day came to twenty thousand, yet most of it left his table untouched, as though no one had eaten from it. It was then sold at the Citadel gate for the lowest prices; indeed, many householders no longer prepared delicacies at home, but instead bought (7) at bargain rates what they could otherwise have obtained only with great cost and effort. A man might purchase for half a dirham, or a single dirham, what would normally be beyond his means, perhaps even unobtainable. Provisions were abundant and readily available in his time.
He was a light-hearted, witty man of pleasing appearance, cultured, and capable of composing poetry of moderate yet solid quality for his rank. Shaykh Qutb al-Din, in his Dhayl (8), cites a fine selection of his verses, which are both graceful and apt.
He was killed (9) in the eastern lands and buried there, even though he had prepared (10) a tomb for himself in the ribat he built at the foot of Mount Qasiyun; it was not decreed that he be laid to rest there.