the lord of Ḥamā, King ʿImād al-Dīn, and the minister Shams al-Dīn Ghubriyāl, all of them in the Sultan’s service; a great many other dignitaries were likewise in his retinue.

That same year a fierce engagement took place among the Tatars. Their ruler Bū Saʿīd (1) had grown exasperated with Jūbān and could not lay hands on him, so he deputed a group of amirs to do the task—among them Abū Yaḥyā, his mother’s brother, Duqmāq, Qaramshī (2), and other grandees of the realm. They intended to fall upon Jūbān unawares, but he fled, came to the Sultan, and informed him of their designs; with him was the vizier ʿAlī Shāh. Jūbān kept pressing the Sultan until he was reconciled to him and furnished him with a large army. The Sultan himself mounted alongside him; they met the hostile force, routed and captured them. Jūbān then assumed authority over the prisoners and, by the end of the year, had executed roughly forty amirs (3).

Shaykh, the Qurʾānic reciter, Shihāb al-Dīn (4): Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn (5) ibn Sulaymān ibn Fizārah (6) ibn Badr al-Kafrī, a Ḥanafī, born around 637 AH. He studied hadith and personally read the Sunan of al-Tirmidhī, mastered the variant Qurʾānic readings, and for a time was their sole authority, with people flocking to him; more than twenty students completed the seven canonical readings under his guidance. Well-versed in grammar, literature, and many other fields, he was pleasant company and possessed a wealth of useful observations. He taught at the Tarkhāniyyah (7) for over forty years and served as deputy judge for al-Adhraʿī during his tenure. Pious and blessed, he lost his sight near the end of his life and withdrew to his home, persisting in recitation, remembrance, and the instruction of the Qurʾān until he died on the thirteenth of Jumādā al-Ūlā. The funeral prayer was held for him after ẓuhr that day in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, and he was buried on Mount Qāsiyūn (8). May Allah have mercy on him.

In this same month news arrived of the death (9) of the venerable imam Tāj al-Dīn (10) ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥāmid al-Tabrīzī, the Shāfiʿī known as al-Afḍalī. He passed away in Baghdad, after returning from the Hajj, during the first ten days of Ṣafar. He was righteous, a learned jurist, and blessed, and