by his father from Nawa. He served as acting professor in the Iqbaliyya College on behalf of Ibn Khallikan; he likewise deputised in the Falakiyya and the Rukniyya, and he was appointed shaykh of Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ashrafiyya. Never did he waste a moment of his time; during his stay in Damascus he performed the ḥajj, and he enjoined right and forbade wrong with kings and commoners alike. He passed away on the night of the twenty-fourth of Rajab of this year in Nawa and was buried there (may Allah have mercy on him and pardon us and him).

ʿAlī ibn ʿAlī ibn Asfandiyār (1), Najm al-Dīn.
He was the Saturday preacher in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus during the Three Months, and he was the shaykh of the Mujāhidiyya khānqāh, where he also died this year. An accomplished scholar, his grandfather had written official correspondence for Caliph al-Nāṣir, and the family originally hailed from Bushanj. Among Najm al-Dīn’s verses are the following (2):
[in the ṭawīl metre]
If another visits your dwelling in the flesh, I visit it every hour with my heart;
Not everyone far from his homeland is truly distant, nor is everyone physically near, in reality, close.

[Then the year 677 AH began]
Its first day fell on a Wednesday. The Abbasid caliph was al-Hākim bi-Amr Allāh, and the ruler over Syria, Egypt, and Aleppo was al-Malik al-Saʿīd (3).

At the beginning of Muḥarram news spread in Damascus that Ibn Khallikan (4) would resume the judgeship of Damascus, returning to the post at the end of Dhū ’ l-Ḥijjah after a dismissal of seven years. Consequently, Qāḍī ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn al-Ṣāʿigh refrained from judging on the sixth of Muḥarram, and the people went out to welcome Ibn Khallikan—some reaching as far as al-Ramla. His entry took place on Thursday, the twenty-third of Muḥarram. The deputy of the sultanate, ʿIzz al-Dīn Aydumur, together with all the amirs and processions, went out to receive him. The populace rejoiced, the poets praised him, and the jurist Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿwān (5) recited:
[in the basīṭ metre]

(6)