and there he set about surveying its affairs. He found in the town a young man from a merchant family called “Li.” The youth had memorised the Qur’an, studied a little jurisprudence, read al-Ishārāt by Ibn Sīnā, and practised astrology. He then claimed to be Jesus son of Mary, and a group of ignorant locals believed him. Among the duties he annulled for them were the mid-afternoon (ʿaṣr) prayer and the final night (ʿishāʾ al-ākhirah) prayer. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn summoned him and questioned him; perceiving that he was intelligent and acting deliberately, he ordered him to be executed before his very eyes—may Allah reward him well. He then commanded the common folk to plunder the goods of the impostor’s followers as well as the impostor’s own belongings. (1)
Among the notable deaths of the year was Muʾayyad al-Dīn Abū al-Maʿālī al-Muṣaddar al-Raʾīs (2) Asʿad Yābā al-Muẓaffarī, son of the vizier Muʾayyad al-Dīn Asʿad ibn Ḥamzah ibn Asʿad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Tamīmī ibn al-Qalānisī. He had passed the age of ninety and was a leading dignitary of ample means who never neglected personally to oversee public offices. After Ibn Suwayd (3) he was obliged to manage the sultan’s interests and did so without drawing a salary. He died in his orchard and was buried at the foot of Mount Qāsiyūn on Tuesday, the 13th of Muḥarram.
He was the father of Ṣadr ʿIzz al-Dīn Ḥamzah, the chief of both Damascus and Cairo.
Their grandfather, Muʾayyad al-Dīn (4) Asʿad ibn Ḥamzah the Elder, had been vizier to al-Malik al-Afḍal ʿAlī ibn al-Nāṣir, the conqueror of Jerusalem. A distinguished notable, he wrote the book al-Waṣiyyah fī al-Akhlaq al-Marḍiyyah (The Testament on Commendable Ethics) (5) and other works. He also had a fine hand in poetry, of which are these lines (6) in the basīṭ metre:
O Lord, be bountiful to me when the grave enfolds me,
With a mercy from You that saves me from the Fire;
Deal kindly with my resting-place when I become Your neighbour there,
For You have indeed enjoined good treatment of the neighbour.
As for the father of Ḥamzah ibn Asʿad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Tamīmī, he was al-ʿAmīd. An accomplished scribe, he composed a chronicle covering the period after 440 AH up to the year of his death in 555 AH.