Account of the conquest of Acre and the remaining coastal strongholds

In this year a courier (1) arrived in Damascus at the beginning of Rabiʿ I with orders to prepare the siege equipment for Acre (2). A proclamation was made in the city: “Ghuzāt in the path of Allah, to Acre!” At that time the inhabitants of Acre (3) had shown open enmity toward the Muslim merchants living among them, killing them and seizing their property. Accordingly, the mangonels (4)(5) were brought out toward the district of al-Jasurah, and the common volunteers (6)—even jurists, professors, and men of piety—pulled them along on carts. Emir ʿAlam al-Din al-Duwādārī (8) took charge of their transport (7).

The armies marched out ahead of the deputy of Syria, who himself brought up the rear; the lord of Ḥamāh, al-Malik al-Muẓaffar (9), joined him. People converged from every direction, the forces of Tripoli linked up with them, and al-Ashraf set out from Egypt with his troops heading for Acre. Thus the armies gathered there, and on Thursday, the fourth of Rabiʿ II, they invested the city (10). Mangonels were positioned against it from every vantage point, and the besiegers exerted themselves to the utmost to tighten the blockade (11).

Meanwhile the populace gathered in the mosques (12) for a public recitation of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī; Shaykh Sharaf al-Din al-Fazārī (13) led the reading, attended by the judges, scholars, and notables (14).

During the siege a disturbance arose involving the deputy of Syria, Ḥusām al-Din Lājīn (15). He imagined that the sultan intended to seize him, having been informed of this by the emir known as