Then the year 696 AH began. It opened with the caliph, the sultan, the deputy of Egypt, the deputy of Syria, and the judges exactly as they had been in the previous year, while the sultan (1) al-Malik al-ʿĀdil Kitbugha was hunting in the environs of Ḥimṣ, accompanied by the deputy of Egypt, Lājīn (2), and the leading emirs. The deputy of Syria, resident in Damascus, was the emir Sayf al-Dīn Gurlū (3) al-ʿĀdilī.

The judges of Syria were likewise unchanged, save for the Ḥanbalī post, which was now held by Taqī al-Dīn Sulaymān ibn Ḥamzah. The vizier was Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ḥanafī, his son served as the muḥtasib (4), and the city’s preacher was the Chief Justice Badr al-Dīn Ibn Jamāʿah al-Shāfiʿī (5).

On Wednesday, the second of Muḥarram, the sultan Kitbugha entered Damascus in the late morning, coming from the district of Ḥimṣ. He led the Friday prayer in the royal enclosure, visited the tomb of Hūd and prayed there, received the people’s petitions with his own hand, and on Saturday held court in the Dār al-ʿAdl, he and his vizier Fakhr al-Dīn al-Khalīlī endorsing the petitions.

During this month Shihāb al-Dīn ibn Muḥyī al-Dīn ibn al-Naḥḥās taught in his father’s two colleges—the Rayḥāniyyah (6) and the Ẓāhiriyyah—and large numbers attended his lessons.

The sultan again convened court in the Dār al-ʿAdl on Tuesday, and when Friday came he once more led the congregational prayer in the royal enclosure (7). That same day he ascended to the Cave of Blood to visit it (8); there he supplicated and gave a considerable sum in charity. On the night of Sunday, the thirteenth of Muḥarram, the vizier al-Khalīlī came to the Great Mosque after the night prayer, sat by the Kāmilīyah lattice, and the Qur’an reciters (9) read before him. He ordered that the interior of the mosque be fully carpeted, which was carried out, and this arrangement continued for about two months (10) before matters reverted to their former state.