both by the court and by his own community. He was extraordinarily large-framed, with a shaven head, and he left behind wealth and children.
Emir Fāris al-Dīn al-Rawādī⦗1⦘ died in the last ten days of Ramaḍān. A few days before his death he saw the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—who said to him, “You have been forgiven,” or words to that effect. He was one of the amirs of Ḥusām al-Dīn Lājīn.
The exemplar and devoted worshipper Abū ʿAbd Allah ibn Muṭarrif died in Mecca during Ramaḍān. He had lived there in continuous residence for sixty years and performed fifty full circuits of tawāf around the Kaʿba every day and night. He passed away at the age of ninety (may Allah have mercy on him)⦗2⦘.
The devout shaykh and preacher of Damascus, Shams al-Dīn⦗3⦘ Muḥammad ibn al-Shaykh Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān al-Khilāṭī, imam of the Kallāsah⦗4⦘, was a handsome, dignified man, abundant in worship and marked by calm and gravity. He served as imam of the Kallāsah for nearly forty years. Thereafter he was invited—without any petition on his part—to assume the Friday pulpit in the Great Mosque of Damascus, a post he held for six and a half months with the utmost excellence. He had a beautiful voice and a pleasant melody, was versed in the science of music, and combined this with piety, devotion, and the study of hadith.
He died suddenly in the preacher’s residence on Wednesday, the eighth of Shawwāl, at the age of sixty-two. The funeral prayer was first held for him in the mosque, which was filled to capacity, and then again in the Horse Market. The viceroy, the amirs, and the common people attended; the markets were closed, and he was carried to the foot of Mount Qasyūn (may Allah have mercy on him).
[Then the year 707 AH began.]
[It commenced with the caliph of the time being al-Mustakfī bi-Allāh ibn al-Ḥākim of the Abbasid house, while the sultan was al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn; his deputies and judges in Egypt and Syria remained those previously named, except that the preacher of Damascus was now Jalāl al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī⦗5⦘.]
Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya was still imprisoned in the Citadel of the Mountain in Egypt⦗6⦘. Early in Muḥarram the sultan, al-Malik al-Nāṣir, displayed anger toward Emir Salar⦗7⦘ and the Jāshankīr⦗8⦘, refused to affix the royal endorsement (ʿalāma), closed the Citadel and fortified himself inside it. The two emirs remained confined to their homes; a group of amirs gathered against them, and the Citadel was besieged.