of the sultan, al-Malik al-Manṣūr Lajin, and of his deputy, Sayf al-Dīn Mankutamur, and that the deed had been carried out on the night of Friday, the eleventh of the month, by Emir Sayf al-Dīn Kurji al-Ashrafī and the emirs who supported him. This took place in the presence of the Ḥanafī judge Ḥusām al-Dīn, who was sitting in attendance upon the sultan; the two were conversing—some said they were playing chess—when, without warning, the assailants burst in (1). They rushed straight at the sultan and slew him openly that Thursday night, while his deputy was executed in cold blood on Friday morning and his body hurled onto a rubbish heap.
The emirs thereupon agreed to restore the throne to the son of their former master, al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn. They dispatched messengers after him—he was in al-Karak—and proclaimed him in Cairo, having the Friday sermon delivered in his name even before his arrival. Letters were sent to the viceroy of Syria, Qabjaq, but they found that he had fled (2) in fear of Lajin’s vengeance. Couriers pursued him, yet they did not overtake him until he had taken refuge with the Mongols (3) at Raʾs al-ʿAyn, in the district of Mardin. Matters thus slipped beyond control; there is no might and no power except with Allah.
The man who mustered his resolve and set out in pursuit to bring them back was Emir Sayf al-Dīn Balabān (4). Meanwhile the affairs of state were borne in the Citadel by its deputy, ʿAlam al-Dīn Arjawāsh (5), together with Emir Sayf al-Dīn Jāghān (6). They seized everything (7) that had been exclusively attached to the former regime. Among those affected (8) was Jamāl al-Dīn Yūsuf al-Rūmī, the city’s muḥtasib and overseer of the bimaristan (9); after a time he was released and reinstated (10) in his offices.
Precautions were likewise taken against Sayf al-Dīn Jāghān and Ḥusām al-Dīn Lajin, governor of the frontier; both were confined in the Citadel. In Egypt Emir Sayf al-Dīn Ṭughjī (11)—who had acted as al-Nāṣir’s viceroy for four days—and Kurji, the man who had slain Lajin, were executed; their bodies were flung (12) onto the refuse heaps. People, commoners and others alike, gathered to gaze upon the face (13) of Ṭughjī, for he was exceedingly handsome (14). After all their indulgence, wealth, and sovereign power, graves awaited them there.
The sultan Lajin was buried, and at his feet lay his deputy—and former mamluk—Mankutamur. The rest were interred in their respective resting places at that spot.