On the night preceding the last day of Ṣafar, Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah set out from Cairo for Alexandria in the company of a high-ranking amir. They brought him to the sultan’s residence and lodged him in one of its towers—broad and spacious—so that people could enter to see him and busy themselves with every branch of learning (1). Thereafter he attended the Friday congregations and delivered his customary sermons in the great mosque.

[He entered Alexandria on a Sunday, and ten days later news of him reached Damascus. The people there were pained and feared for him the treachery of al-Jāshankīr and his shaykh al-Manbijī, so their prayers on his behalf increased. None of his companions had been allowed to accompany him to Alexandria, which weighed heavily on their hearts, for at that moment his enemy Nasr al-Manbijī held sway] (2).

Nasr’s enmity sprang from the fact that Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn used to speak against al-Jāshankīr and his shaykh Nasr al-Manbijī, declaring, “His days are finished, his authority is ended, and his term is nearly up,” and he also criticized them, Ibn ʿArabī, and Ibn ʿArabī’s followers. Hence they resolved to send him to Alexandria as though banished, hoping that someone there would dare to assassinate him (3). Yet this only increased the people’s love for him, their closeness to him, the benefit they gained from him, their eagerness to study with him, and their affection and honour toward him.

[A letter arrived from his brother (4) which read: “Our noble brother has taken up residence in the protected frontier city with the intention of ribāṭ. The enemies of Allah sought thereby to plot against him and against Islam and its people, but it proved an honour for us instead. They thought it would lead to the shaykh’s ruin, yet their wicked schemes recoiled upon them and were overturned on every side. Morning and evening they stand—before Allah and before discerning people—black of face, torn by regret and remorse for what they have done. All the people of the frontier have turned toward our brother, welcoming and honouring him, and at every moment he spreads from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger that which gladdens the eyes of the believers, while it is a thorn (5) in the throats of the enemies. It so happened that he found in Alexandria that Satan had laid his eggs there and hatched them, leading astray the Sabʿīniyyah (6) and the ʿArabiyyah (7). But Allah, through his arrival, shattered their unity, scattered them like dust, stripped away their veils and exposed them. He brought many of them to repentance and even led one of their chiefs to sincere repentance. Thus, among the generality and the elite of the believers—emirs, judges, jurists, muftis, shaykhs, and the community of independent scholars—save for a handful of foolish ignoramuses, love for the shaykh, reverence for him, and acceptance of his words have become firmly rooted, accompanied by humility and submission.”]