it was al-Jashankir who had revived that requirement against them, and he said: ‘What al-Jashankir did was carried out under your own ordinances, for he was acting only as your deputy.’ The sultan liked this and kept the People of the Covenant upon it, and further episodes occurred whose details would take too long to relate.
[The sultan knew the shaykh better than anyone present—aware of his learning, piety] (1) his adherence to the truth, and his courage. I heard Shaykh Taqi al-Din recount what had passed between him and the sultan when they were alone in that latticed alcove: the sultan had sought a fatwa from him permitting the execution of certain judges because of their statements, and he produced for the shaykh some of their legal opinions calling for the sultan’s removal and for al-Jashankir to be given the oath of allegiance, pointing out that they had risen up against him and even harmed you as well. He repeatedly urged the shaykh to issue a ruling authorising the killing of some of them, for his anger toward them stemmed solely from their efforts to depose him in favour of al-Jashankir. The shaykh understood the sultan’s intent and began extolling the rank of judges and scholars, rejecting that anyone should harm them. He said, ‘If you kill these men, you will never find their like again.’
The sultan replied, ‘But they have harmed you and have tried to kill you many times.’
The shaykh said, ‘Whoever has wronged me—I have forgiven him; but whoever has wronged Allah and His Messenger, then Allah will avenge Him. I do not seek retribution for myself.’ He continued in this vein until the sultan’s anger subsided and he pardoned them.
He (the narrator) said: The Maliki judge Ibn Makhluf (2) used to say, ‘We have never seen anyone like Ibn Taymiyyah: we incited the sultan against him yet could not prevail over him, while he prevailed over us, forgave us, and even pleaded on our behalf.’
[After meeting the sultan, the shaykh went down to Cairo and resumed disseminating knowledge. People flocked to him, travelling to study under him and seek his rulings, and he would answer them in writing and in speech. The jurists came to apologise for what had occurred from them toward him, and he said, ‘I have pardoned everyone.’
The shaykh sent a letter to his family describing the blessings of Allah upon him and the abundant good He had granted, asking them to send him a collection of his books and to seek the help of Jamal al-Din al-Mizzi, for he would know how to obtain the specific volumes he had mentioned.
In that letter he wrote: ‘Truth in all its forms is rising, growing, and victorious, while falsehood is sinking, fading, and disappearing. Allah has bowed the necks of the adversaries, and their leaders have sued for peace in a manner too lengthy to describe. We have imposed upon them conditions that bring glory to Islam and the sunnah and suppress falsehood and innovation, and they have submitted to it all. Yet we have refused to accept it from them until it is put into practice; we have trusted neither their word nor their pledge, and we have not granted them their request until the stipulated matters are acted upon, the mentioned points carried out, and the honour of Islam and the sunnah is made manifest to elite and commoner alike—good deeds that will erase their bad ones.’ He added a lengthy discourse detailing what had transpired between him and the sultan in subduing the Jews and Christians, humiliating them, and leaving them in their state of disgrace and abasement, and Allah, exalted is He, knows best] (3).
In Shawwal the sultan arrested a number of amirs, nearly twenty in all (4).
On the sixteenth of Shawwal a clash took place in Hauran between the Qays and Yaman factions, and a very great slaughter ensued; of them were killed