al-Kiswah⦗1⦘, with the judges accompanying them. At this the people split into two camps. One group said, “They have gone only to choose a place for the battle, for the Marj is full of water and fighting would be impossible there.” The other group maintained, “No, they have moved in that direction to run away and rejoin the Sultan.”

When Wednesday night came they marched toward al-Kiswah, and suspicions of their flight grew stronger. The Tatars, meanwhile, had reached Qarah⦗2⦘—some even said they had arrived at al-Qutayfah—and the populace was seized by extreme panic⦗3⦘. No one remained in the outlying villages and towns; the Citadel and the city overflowed, houses and streets jammed together, and confusion reigned.

On Thursday morning of that same month Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah left by the Bāb al-Naṣr gate with great difficulty, accompanied by a party intent on witnessing the fighting themselves. Some assumed that he was fleeing, and certain people reproached him, saying, “You forbade us to scatter, yet here you are running out of the city!” He gave them no answer.

With no authority left in the city, thieves and riffraff⦗4⦘ ran amok there and in people’s orchards, laying waste and looting whatever they could reach. They stripped apricots before their season, along with broad beans, wheat, and every kind of vegetable. News of the army was cut off and the roads to al-Kiswah were severed. A sense of desolation settled over the city and its suburbs; people did nothing but climb the minarets, scanning right and left and toward al-Kiswah. At times they would say, “We see a cloud of dust,” and fear it might be the Tatars. They kept wondering, with all the army’s great numbers and fine equipment, where it could have gone; they had no inkling of what Allah had decreed for it.

All hope seemed lost, yet the people persisted in supplication, earnest entreaty, and prayer under every circumstance. This was Thursday, the twenty-ninth of Shaʿbān. They were gripped by an indescribable terror, though relief was near—and most of them did not know it⦗5⦘, just as it is related in the ḥadīth of Abū Razīn⦗6⦘:
“Your Lord is amazed at the despair of His servants and how near their relief is. He looks upon you in your misery and despondency, and He continues to smile, knowing that your deliverance is close.”⦗7⦘

Toward the end of that day the amir Fakhr al-Dīn Iyās⦗8⦘ al-Marqabī, one of the emirs of Damascus, arrived and brought the people glad tidings