[Then the year 669 AH began]

At the opening of Safar the Sultan set out from Egypt with a contingent of troops for Ascalon. He pulled down what was left of its wall—neglected since the Ayyubid period—and in the rubble he came upon two earthen jars containing two thousand dinars, which he distributed among the emirs. While he was there, word reached him that Mankutamur had routed Abaqa’s army; he rejoiced at the news and returned to Cairo.

In Rabiʿ al-Awwal the Sultan learned that the people of Acre had beheaded, in cold blood, the Muslim prisoners they held outside the city. He therefore ordered that the Acre prisoners in his own custody be beheaded the same morning; they numbered close to one hundred (1) captives.

Also that year:
– The Jāmiʿ al-Manshiyya (2) was completed, and the first Friday prayer was held there on the twenty-second of Rabiʿ al-Ākhir.
– Protracted wars—too many to recount—broke out between the people of Tunis and the Franks; afterwards they agreed to a truce and laid down their arms, though uncounted multitudes had fallen on both sides.

On Thursday, the eighth of Rajab, al-Ẓāhir entered Damascus accompanied by his son al-Malik al-Saʿīd, the vizier Ibn al-Ḥinā, and the greater part of the army. They then marched out in separate columns, agreeing to rendezvous on the coast in order to raid Jableh, Latakia, al-Marqab, ʿArqa (3), and the surrounding towns. Once assembled, they captured Ṣāfītā (4) and al-Majdal, then advanced and encamped before the Castle of the Kurds on Tuesday, the nineteenth of Rajab. The fortress had three concentric walls; they set up the mangonels and forced it to capitulate (5) on the fifteenth of Shaʿbān. The army entered—al-Malik al-Saʿīd had conducted the siege—and the Sultan released the inhabitants, granted them safe-conduct, and relocated them to Tripoli. Ten days later he took possession of the citadel as well, evacuated its people, converted the town’s church into a mosque and inaugurated the Friday prayer there, appointed a deputy governor and a qadi, and ordered the town to be rebuilt.

The lord of Antartus (6) then sent him the keys of his city, seeking peace on the condition that half its revenues be assigned to the Sultan and that a deputy be stationed there in the Sultan’s name. He agreed, and the lord of al-Marqab did likewise, concluding with him on an equal division of revenues and a ten-year truce.