ibn Muhammad ibn Taymiyyah al-Harrani, the town’s preacher, whose household was renowned (1) for learning, eloquence, and leadership. He was buried in the Ṣūfī cemetery (2), having reached nearly sixty years of age—may Allah have mercy on him. He had heard hadith from his grandfather, the preacher Fakhr al-Din (3), author of the celebrated collection of sermons, who died (4) in the Khanqah al-Qasr (5) outside Damascus.
Shaykh Khidr (6) ibn Abu Bakr (7) al-Mahrani al-ʿAdawi, a Kurd.
He was the spiritual guide of al-Malik al-Ẓahir Baybars, enjoying exceptional favor and honor with him and occupying an exalted station in his eyes. The sultan himself would descend to the lodge he had built for him in al-Husayniyyah once or twice every week, and beside it he constructed a congregational mosque where the Friday sermon was delivered. He bestowed great sums of money upon him (8), granted him whatever he desired, and endowed his lodge with an immense amount of property. Because of the sultan’s love and veneration for him, he was held in reverence by both elite and commoner. The sultan would even jest with him when sitting in his company. The shaykh was a man of virtue, piety, and rectitude, and he disclosed to the sultan many matters (9).
On one occasion he entered the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (10), slew its priest with his own hand, and distributed everything in it to his companions. He did likewise with the church in Alexandria—one of their largest—plundering it and converting it into a mosque and a madrasa, on which he spent large sums from the public treasury, naming it the Green Madrasa. He acted in the same way toward the Jews’ synagogue in Damascus: he entered it, seized all its instruments and furnishings, laid out a banquet there—[and held a session of samāʿ (devotional music)]—and turned it into a mosque for a time, until they petitioned him to restore it to them [and leave it in their possession] (11).
Later, in this very year, certain deeds of his met with disapproval, and he was called to account for them before Sultan al-Malik al-Ẓahir; it then became clear to the sultan