On Wednesday, the fourteenth of Rajab, Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn ibn al-Katānī of Damascus delivered a hadith lesson beneath the Manṣūriyya Dome (1), at the behest of the deputy of al-Karak and of Arghūn. A large audience attended. He was an able jurist, but hadith was neither his discipline nor his usual concern.

Toward the end of Rajab, Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn Muḥammad (2) ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Marḥal arrived from Egypt to take up the professorship of the Outer Shāmiyya Madrasa. The post had been held by Ibn al-Zamalkanī, who had moved on to the judgeship of Aleppo. Ibn al-Marḥal lectured there on the fifth of Shaʿbān in the presence of the Shāfiʿī chief judge and a number of others.

On the last day of Rajab, the judge ʿIzz al-Dīn ibn Badr al-Dīn Ibn Jamāʿa came from Egypt with his son. Accompanying him were Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn al-Dimyāṭī and a group of students intent on listening to hadith. He read aloud himself, others read to him, and the people paid him great attention. We too attended and, through his reading, heard a large amount. May Allah benefit them by what they read and heard, and may He benefit others through them.

On Wednesday, the twelfth of Shaʿbān, Shaykh Shams al-Dīn ibn al-Iṣbahānī (3) taught at the Rawāḥiyya after Ibn al-Zamalkanī’s departure for Aleppo. The judges and notables attended, among them the Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya. That day a discussion arose regarding the ruling on a general statement when it is qualified, and on an exception that follows a negation. The debate spread, lasted a long time, and Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn spoke in a way that left those present dumbfounded (4).

Confirmation of the sighting of the Shawwāl crescent was delayed until almost noon on the very day of ʿĪd al-Fiṭr. When it was finally established, the drums of glad tidings were beaten, and the preacher led the ʿĪd prayer the next morning in the congregational mosque; the people did not go out to the open prayer-ground. The populace became angry with the muezzins, and some of them were imprisoned.

The caravan set out on the tenth of the month under the command of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ibn Aybak al-Ṭawīl. Among those in the caravan were Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ibn al-Awḥad, al-Mankursī, and its judge Shihāb al-Dīn al-Ẓāhirī.

On the seventeenth, Ḥusām al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī—formerly judge of Tripoli—delivered a lesson in the Nāṣirī ribāṭ on Mount Qāsyūn. He had obtained that post through an exchange with Jamāl al-Dīn ibn al-Sharīshī (5), who moved to the professorship of the Masrūriyya. A decree had already been issued appointing al-Qazwīnī to the ʿAdhrāʾawiyya and the Ẓāhiriyya, but Chief Judge Jalāl (6) al-Dīn and his two deputies, Ibn Jumla and al-Fakhr al-Miṣrī, intercepted him on the way and convened a hearing for him and for Kamāl al-Dīn ibn al-Shīrāzī, who carried a decree for the Outer Shāmiyya. The matter was left in abeyance for both of them because they had not produced