to Him all the servants’ affairs return;
Abandon your protest—for how ignorant you are!
Among the prominent people who died in that same year (1) was the ḥadith master (ḥāfiẓ) Abū Ibrāhīm Isḥāq ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd Allāh (2), known as Ibn Qāḍī al-Yaman. He was sixty-eight years old and was buried in al-Sharaf al-Aʿlā. He possessed a number of rare and valuable narrations, from which many people benefited.
[Birth of al-Sharaf Ibn Taymiyyah (3) and al-Qazwīnī (4)]
In that same year were born Shaykh Sharaf al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Taymiyyah, the brother of Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah, and the preacher al-Qazwīnī.
[The Year 667 AH]
In Ṣafar of that year Sultan al-Ẓāhir renewed the oath of allegiance for his son, al-Malik al-Saʿīd Muḥammad Barakah Khān, to succeed him. He assembled all the amirs, judges, and notables, mounted his son, and walked ahead of him. Ibn Luqmān (5) then drafted for him an imposing diploma, investing him with the throne after his father and authorising him to govern on his father’s behalf during his lifetime as well.
Later, in Jumādā al-Ākhirah, the sultan set out with his armies for Syria. When he entered Damascus, envoys arrived from Abaqā, king of the Tatars (6), bearing letters and oral messages. Among what they said was this:
“You are a slave who was sold (7) in Sivas. How can it be fitting for you to oppose the kings of the earth? Know that, even if you were to ascend to the sky or descend into the earth, you would not escape me—so look to your own interest and make peace with Sultan Abaqā.”
Al-Ẓāhir paid no heed to this and regarded it as nothing. Instead, he replied in full, telling their envoys:
“Inform him that I am on his heels with my demands, and I shall not cease until I wrest from him (8) every territory he has seized from the caliph’s lands and from the rest of the earth.”
Also in Jumādā al-Ākhirah, Sultan al-Malik al-Ẓāhir ordered the spilling of wine and the abolition of corrupt practices and of the khawāṭiʾ (singing-girls/courtesans) throughout the provinces.