In that same month of Ṣafar a mighty flood struck the city of Baalbek, killing a great many people and ravaging numerous houses and buildings. This took place on Tuesday, 27 Ṣafar.

In brief, before the disaster a violent storm of thunder and lightning had come upon them, accompanied by hail and rain, so that the valleys overflowed. After that there descended an enormous torrent which undermined the town wall on the north-eastern side for a length of forty cubits, even though the wall was five cubits thick. It swept away an entire sound tower together with the two massive buttresses flanking it (1). The flood bore the whole structure off intact, carving a trench in the ground some 500 cubits long and 30 cubits wide. It then carried everything to the western side of the town, destroying whatever lay in its path. Entering the city while the inhabitants were off their guard, it ruined more than one-third of it. The waters poured into the Great Mosque, rising inside to one and a half man-heights; they then battered the western wall until it collapsed, destroying everything stored there (2)—grain reserves, books, and Qur’ans. They also ruined a large part of the properties endowed to the mosque (3), and many men, women, and children perished beneath the falling debris. To Allah we belong and to Him we shall return.

Shaykh ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Shaykh ʿAlī al-Ḥarīrī (4) drowned in the mosque together with a group of indigent devotees.

It is said that among the townsfolk of Baalbek who died in this calamity there were 144 persons, not counting strangers. The number of houses and shops demolished or ruined reached about 600, the orchards whose trees were uprooted numbered twenty, and eight mills were swept away, in addition to the Great Mosque and the Amīniyya (5). As for the places into which the waters penetrated, ruining their contents without demolishing them, they are too many to enumerate.

In this same year the Nile rose to an unprecedented level, the like of which had not been heard of in ages. It inundated many regions, and many people likewise perished. It flooded Munyat al-Shirj (6), causing the inhabitants enormous losses. Indeed, to Allah we belong and to Him we shall return.

At the beginning of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir Sultan Bū Saʿīd ibn Khurbanda ascended the throne in the Imperial City (7).

Later that same month an army from Aleppo raided the city of Āmid: they plundered, took captives, and returned safely.