four separate judgeships were created (1) in Damascus, one for each of the four legal schools, exactly as had been done in Egypt the previous year (2). The deputy-governor of Syria at the time was Aqūsh al-Najībī.
Warrants of appointment also arrived for the office of chief judge for the remaining three schools, so that every madhhab now possessed its own qāḍī al-quḍāt. Over the Shāfiʿīs was Shams al-Din Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm Ibn Khallikān (3) al-Barmakī; over the Ḥanafīs, Shams al-Din ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAṭāʾ (4); over the Ḥanbalīs, Shams al-Din ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, son of Shaykh Abū ʿUmar (5) Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Qudāma; and over the Mālikīs, ʿAbd al-Salām ibn al-Zawwāwī (6).
ʿAbd al-Salām initially declined the post, but he was pressed until he accepted, then resigned, and was pressed again. This time he agreed on the condition that he neither supervise any endowments nor receive a stipend for (7) issuing judgments; his terms were granted. The Ḥanbalī judge likewise took no payment for his rulings, saying, “Our needs are already met,” and he too was excused—may Allah be pleased with them.
This unprecedented arrangement had first been introduced in Egypt the previous year, as noted earlier (8), and affairs now settled into the same pattern.
In this year, the construction of the pool east of the Postal Canal was completed; a shādhrawān (water apron), a domed pavilion, and pipes (9) were installed to carry water to the side of the northern steps (10).
Also in this year al-Ẓāhir laid siege to Ṣafad (11). He summoned mangonels from Damascus, surrounded the fortress, and did not desist until he captured it. The inhabitants capitulated to his judgment, and he took possession of the town on Friday, the eighteenth of Shawwāl of this year. He executed the fighting men and enslaved the women and children. Ṣalāḥ al-Din Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb (12) had first taken the stronghold, likewise in Shawwāl, in 584 AH; the Franks (13) later recovered it, but al-Ẓāhir wrested it from them by force in the present year—praise be to Allah (14). The Sultan al-Ẓāhir was in