al-Dīn al-Qazwīnī arrived carrying gifts, presents, and various items intended for Emir Sayf al-Dīn Arghūn, the viceroy of Egypt, for Arghūn too performed the ḥajj that year together with his children and the wife (1) of his son, who was the Sultan’s daughter.

Fakhr al-Dīn, the son of the shaykh of Salamiyah, Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Mālikī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Baʿlabakkī, and others (2) likewise performed the pilgrimage.

On Wednesday, the tenth of Dhū al-Qiʿdah, Burhān al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Hilāl al-Zurʿī al-Ḥanbalī delivered the lesson in the Ḥanbali madrasa (3) in place of Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyyah. The Shāfiʿī judge and a number of jurists were in attendance, which caused much distress to many of Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn’s followers. Before that day Ibn al-Khaṭīrī, the chamberlain, had entered upon Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn, met with him, and—acting on the orders of the deputy of the sultanate—questioned him on several matters.

Then on Thursday the judge Jamāl al-Dīn ibn Jumlah and Nāṣir al-Dīn, the superintendent of the awqāf, came in and asked him about the substance of his statement on the question of visitation. He wrote his answer on a scroll (4), [and the Shāfiʿī judge in Damascus wrote beneath it: “I have compared the reply to this question, penned in Ibn Taymiyyah’s own hand, and found it sound (5) up to the point where he says: ‘The real issue is that he regards the visitation of the Prophet’s grave ﷺ and the graves of the Prophets—may Allah’s prayers and peace be upon them all—as, by unanimous and categorical agreement, a sin.’ Observe now this distortion attributed to Shaykh al-Islām! His answer to this question contains no prohibition of visiting the graves of the Prophets and the righteous. What it does contain is a mention of two opinions concerning saddling mounts and travelling solely for the purpose of visiting graves. Visiting graves without undertaking a journey is one matter, while saddling mounts exclusively for visitation is another. The Shaykh did not forbid visitation absent travel; rather, he considers it recommended and encouraged, and his writings and manuals of pilgrimage testify to that. In the present fatwā he did not touch upon that form of visitation, did not declare it sinful, nor did he cite a consensus prohibiting it,

nor was he unaware of the Messenger of Allah’s—Allah bless him and grant him peace—saying:

‘Visit the graves, for they remind you of the Hereafter.’ (6)

Allah, exalted be He, has nothing concealed from Him; nothing escapes His knowledge. ‘And those who have wronged will come to know the end that they shall meet.’ [al-Shuʿarāʾ: 227] (7).

On Sunday, the fourteenth (8) of Dhū al-Qiʿdah, the Ḥimṣiyyah school (9), opposite the Shāmiyyah al-Jawāniyyah, was opened, and teaching commenced.