Then came the year 734 AH. It opened on a Sunday, and the provincial governors remained those mentioned for the preceding year.
- On Friday, the 2nd of Rabiʿ al-Awwal, the Friday prayer was first held in the outer Khatuniyya (2). The sermon was delivered by Shams al-Din al-Najjar, the muʾadhdhin and time-keeper of the Umayyad Mosque, who thereby relinquished the pulpit of the Qabun Mosque (3).
At the beginning of the same month the amir Shams al-Din Muhammad al-Tadmuri travelled to Jerusalem to serve as its governor, and was relieved of the deputy governorship of Damascus.
On the third of the month Zayn al-Din ʿAbd al-Rahim, son of the Chief Judge Badr al-Din Ibn Jamaʿa, arrived from Egypt with the commission to preach in Jerusalem. He was invested with a robe of honour in Damascus—he put it on—(4) and then set off for his post.
At the end of Rabiʿ al-Awwal the amir Nasir al-Din ibn Baktash al-Hasami took over the supervision of endowments in place of Sharaf al-Din Mahmud ibn al-Khattiri (5), who had departed with his family to Egypt to serve there as amir-deputy on behalf of his brother Badr al-Din Masʿud (6).
Judge ʿAlaʾ al-Din Ibn al-Qalansi was dismissed, together with the other bureaus and officials attached to the department of the grand emir Tankiz. They were fined two hundred thousand dirhams. The overseer of Gaza, Jamal al-Din Yusuf—the son-in-law of al-Sani the comptroller—was summoned and assumed charge of the viceroy’s fiscal bureau as well as the supervision of the Nuri Hospital, as was customary.
During Rabiʿ al-Awwal Tankiz ordered the repair of Bab Tuma. Work began immediately: its portal was raised by ten cubits, and its masonry and ironwork were renewed in record time.
At this same period a flood struck Damascus, damaging several walls before the waters subsided.