and al-Tabākhi al-Manṣūrī (1), along with several other high-ranking emirs (2). When they had ringed the mountain and nothing remained but the destruction of its inhabitants (3), those people came by night and brought Baydara a large payment, so he relaxed his prosecution of them. The troops therefore withdrew and returned to the Sultan (4). The Sultan went out to meet them and even dismounted before Emir Baydara—his viceroy in Egypt (5). Ibn al-Salʿūs then informed the Sultan of what Baydara had done, whereupon the Sultan blamed and sternly rebuked him. As a result, Baydara fell severely ill, hovering at the brink of death—indeed, it was rumored that he had died (6). He later recovered and arranged a grand complete recitation of the Quran in the Great Mosque of Damascus, attended by the judges and notables; the mosque was illuminated as on the night of mid-Shaʿbān (7). This took place on one of the first ten nights of Ramadan. The Sultan freed the prisoners (8), forgave the remaining sureties owed by those holding royal posts, gave abundant charity on Baydara’s behalf, and himself relinquished many guarantees he had been insistently collecting from their holders (9).

Al-Shihāb Maḥmūd (10) composed a powerful and distinguished ode extolling al-Malik al-Ashraf Khalīl for his capture of the Fortress of the Rūm; it begins (11):

[from the ṭawīl metre]
The yellow standard is yours, with victory leading it on—
what can Kayqubād or Kaykhusraw do when it appears?
If it flutters on the horizon, its radiance
casts down idolatry, exalts guidance, and the frontier gleams (12).
Should it spread like the morning glow amid the fray,
the full moon drives the dust away with its brilliance (13).
And if it turns toward the blue-eyed foe, there march beneath it
green battalions whose boughs are the white and brown blades (14).