beauty as well, and he endowed it with several properties and appointed shaykhs and students there, as will be explained in its proper place (1). On his return from Egypt he passed through the Holy Jerusalem, visited it, and ordered the construction of a bathhouse, a madrasa, a dār ḥadīth (2), and a khanqah, as will be set out below.

At the end of Rabīʿ al-Awwal the aqueduct that Sayf al-Dīn Tankiz Qutlubak had commanded to be built and restored reached Jerusalem. He oversaw the work together with the governors of those districts, the Muslims rejoiced at its arrival, and the water flowed even into the middle of the al-Aqṣā Mosque. There a huge marble-faced basin was made between the Rock and al-Aqṣā; the work had begun in Shawwāl of the previous year. During this same period he rebuilt the roofs, porticoes (4), and gates (5) of the Sacred Mosque in Mecca, and an ablution facility was erected there near Bāb Banī Shaybah.

Al-Barzalī said:
In this month the construction of the bathhouse in the Bāb Tūmā market was completed; it has two entrances.

In Rabīʿ al-Ākhir the marble facing on the southern wall of the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, on the western side near Bāb al-Ziyāda, was removed. They found the wall leaning outward (6) and feared for its stability. Tankiz himself came, accompanied by the judges and the experts, and they agreed to demolish and repair it. This took place on Friday, after the prayer, the 27th of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir. The deputy of the sultanate wrote to the sultan informing him of the situation and asking permission to rebuild; the royal decree granting permission arrived, so demolition began on Friday, the 15th of Jumādā al-Ūlā, and rebuilding commenced on Sunday, the 9th of Jumādā al-Ākhirah. A mihrab was erected between Bāb al-Ziyāda (7) and the preacher’s enclosure, fashioned to resemble the mihrab of the Companions. They then applied themselves diligently to the reconstruction, and many people volunteered for the work; more than one hundred men laboured on it every day. The wall, together with its arches and roofs, was completed and restored on the 20th of Rajab, thanks to the resolve of Taqī al-Dīn ibn Marājil. This is truly astonishing, for the wall and the roof directly above it had been demolished and rebuilt in a time no one would have thought possible (8). Their speed was aided by stones they found in the foundation of the western minaret by the Ghazāliyah. Formerly every corner of this sanctuary had a minaret—one on the west, one on the east, and two on the south (9)—but they were destroyed.