In Shaʿban and Ramadan the Nile in Egypt rose to an extraordinary height, the like of which had not been witnessed for about one hundred years or more, remaining over the fields for roughly three and a half months. It submerged many stands of cane, yet its advantage proved far greater than its harm (1).

On Thursday, the eighteenth of Shaʿban, Judge Jalal al-Din al-Qazwini appointed two deputies to exercise judicial authority on his behalf: Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Jumlah al-Mahji al-Salihi—who would later assume the full judgeship, as will be related—and Muhammad ibn ʿAli ibn Ibrahim al-Misri. That day the two of them sat in judgment at the ʿAdiliyya (2).

The following morning a courier arrived with a diploma appointing Shaykh Kamal al-Din ibn al-Zamalkani to the judgeship of Aleppo. The deputy of the Sultanate summoned him and discussed the matter with him, but he refused. The deputy pressed him again and then consulted the Sultan; on the twelfth of Ramadan the courier returned with the appointment ratified. He therefore began his preparations for Aleppo, which continued until he set out at dawn on Thursday, the fourteenth of Shawwal (3). He entered Aleppo on Tuesday, the twenty-sixth of Shawwal, where he was received with exceptional honor. He taught there and introduced disciplines surpassing what the region had known, bringing distinction to its people by his sciences and benefits, while the people of Syria sorrowed over the loss of his elegant and superior lessons. How apt are the poet’s words—Shams al-Din Muhammad al-Khayyat (4) in his lengthy ode, which opens:

Damascus the fragrant grieved at your loss …
while Aleppo, the grey, rejoiced at your arrival (5).

On the twelfth of Ramadan Amin al-Mulk was dismissed from the vizierate of Egypt, and the ministry was conferred upon Prince ʿAlaʾ al-Din Mughultay al-Jamali, the Sultan’s ustadh al-dar (6).

In the latter part of Ramadan the sahib Shams al-Din Ghobriyāl was summoned to Cairo and appointed supervisor of the dīwāns in place of Karim al-Din al-Saghir (7). Karim al-Din arrived in Damascus in Shawwal and took up residence in the Dar al-ʿAdl of the Qassāʿin quarter. Sayf al-Din Qadidar (8) was appointed governor of Egypt; he was a valiant man, yet a prodigious shedder of blood—he poured away wine, burned hashish, and arrested