Shaykh Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan, better known as al-Sārūb (1), a Damascene, bore the honorific Najm al-Dīn. Al-Jazarī devoted a lengthy biographical entry to him (2), attributing to him miracles and various matters connected with the science of letters and the like; Allah knows best his true state.

Nawruz (3)

In the same year Ghazan put to death the amir Nawruz, the very man at whose hands he had embraced Islam (4). It was this Nawruz who had submitted to him and invited him to the faith, whereupon Ghazan accepted Islam and the majority of the Tatars converted with him. Later, however, the Tatars unsettled Ghazan’s mind about Nawruz and drew him away from him (5); they persisted until he executed him and all who were associated with him. Nawruz had been one of Ghazan’s finest Tatar commanders, noted for devotion and sincerity in his Islam, his remembrances, and his voluntary acts of worship (6)—may Allah have mercy on him and pardon him. Through him countless souls, known only to Allah, entered Islam; they adopted prayer-beads and places of worship, attended the Friday and congregational prayers, and recited the Quran. Allah knows best.

Then the year 697 AH began. At its outset the caliph was al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allah Abū al-ʿAbbās, the sultan over the realm was King al-Manṣūr Ḥusām al-Dīn Lājīn, with Mankutamur as viceroy of Egypt (7) and Qabjaq as viceroy of Damascus. The Shāfiʿī chief judge was Imām al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī, and the Ḥanafī chief judge Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Rāzī.

On the tenth of Ṣafar, Jalāl al-Dīn, son of Ḥusām al-Dīn, assumed the judiciary in Damascus in place of his father (8). He rode out clad in the robe of honor and the ceremonial turban; the people congratulated him, and the official documents styled him “Chief Judge.” The Mālikī judge was Jamāl al-Dīn al-Rāzī; the Ḥanbalī judge, Taqī al-Dīn Sulaymān ibn Ḥamzah ibn Shaykh Abū ʿUmar al-Maqdisī; and the city’s preacher, Badr al-Dīn ibn Jamāʿah.

Chief Judge Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Rāzī was summoned to the Egyptian territories (9); he stayed with Sultan Lājīn, who appointed him