al-Bayḍāwī (1) — the prolific author (2) — is the jurist, imam, and erudite scholar Nāṣir al-Dīn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿUmar al-Shīrāzī, chief judge and leading scholar of Shiraz, of Azerbaijan, and of the surrounding regions. He died in Tabriz in 685 AH. Among his writings are: al-Minhāj fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh (“The Minhāj on the Principles of Jurisprudence”), a well-known work that has been commented upon by several scholars (3); Sharḥ al-Tanbīh, in four volumes; al-Ghāyah al-Quṣwā fī Dirāyat al-Fatwā; Sharḥ (4) al-Muntakhab; al-Kāfiyah on logic; al-Ṭawāliʿ; and a commentary on al-Maḥṣūl, in addition to other useful compositions. In his will he requested that Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī be buried beside him (5) in Tabriz. Allah, glorified and exalted, knows best.

[Then came the year 686 AH.]

At the very beginning of Muḥarram (6) the troops, accompanied by the deputy of Syria, Ḥusām al-Dīn Lājīn, set out to besiege (7) Ṣahyūn and the fortress of Barziyyah. Emir Shams (8) al-Dīn Sunqur al-Ashqar resisted them, but they persisted until they compelled him to surrender and hand the towns over to them. He then went to enter the service of the sultan al-Malik al-Manṣūr (9), who received him with honor and respect and granted him precedence over a force of one thousand cavalry. He remained highly esteemed throughout the entire Manṣūrid reign, and those events thus came to an end.

In the middle (10) of Muḥarram, the judge Jalāl al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī ruled as deputy in place of his father, Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Rāzī.

On the thirteenth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, the judge Shihāb al-Dīn Muḥammad, son of the judge Shams al-Dīn ibn al-Khalīl al-Khuwayyī, arrived from Cairo to assume the office of Chief Judge of Damascus (11). His investiture decree was read on Friday, the first of Rabīʿ al-Thānī. Sharaf al-Dīn al-Maqdisī continued as deputy judge. On Sunday, the third of Shawwāl (12), Shaykh Ṣafī al-Dīn delivered a lesson at the Rawāḥiyyah.