—namely, those who had stayed behind in Damascus: Tamur al-Saqī, the muqaddam; Ibn Qarāsunqur; Ibn al-Kāmil; Ibn al-Muʿaẓẓam; Ibn al-Baladī; and others. All of these, together with the fiscal officials of Damascus, pledged allegiance to al-Malik al-Nāṣir ibn al-Nāṣir. Al-Fakhrī remained at Khan Lājīn, where itinerant traders came out to him with their wares, and the drums of rejoicing were beaten in the Citadel on the morning of Tuesday, the sixteenth of the month.
It was proclaimed throughout the city: “Your sultan is al-Malik al-Nāṣir Aḥmad ibn al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn, and your deputy is Sayf al-Dīn Qutlubghā al-Fakhrī.” Many people rejoiced at this. The deputy of Ṣafad (1) joined him, the deputy of Baalbek swore allegiance, and both supplied him with men and troops. Emir Sayf al-Dīn Sinjar al-Jamaqdar, commander of the Damascene right wing, also returned to him—he had fallen behind ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Altunbughā, the deputy of Damascus, because of an illness; but when al-Fakhrī arrived, he rejoined him and pledged allegiance to al-Nāṣir ibn al-Nāṣir.
Al-Fakhrī then wrote to the deputy of Ḥamāh, Taghrudumur, who had once served in Egypt on behalf of al-Malik al-Manṣūr. He agreed, and on Saturday the twenty-seventh of the same month he reached the army in splendid array, bringing abundant treasuries and enormous baggage (2).
On the morning of Sunday the twenty-eighth of that month the sun was eclipsed before noon.
On the morning of Monday, the twenty-ninth of Jumādā al-Ākhira, the deputy of Gaza, Emir Aq-Sunqur (3), arrived with the Gaza force—about two thousand strong. They entered Damascus at dawn, proceeded to al-Fakhrī’s camp, were incorporated into the host, and were warmly welcomed. The army now numbered nearly five thousand fighting men, if not more.
When the odd-numbered month of Rajab began, the leading merchants were summoned for the funds al-Fakhrī demanded to reinforce his army—one million dirhams in all. He also held a decree from al-Nāṣir ibn al-Nāṣir ordering the sale of the Syrian estates of Emir Sayf al-Dīn Qawṣūn, atabeg of al-Malik al-Ashraf ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Kujuk ibn al-Nāṣir, because he had refused to pledge allegiance to Aḥmad ibn al-Nāṣir. Someone advised al-Fakhrī to sell to the merchants certain royal private estates and to class Qawṣūn’s property among them; he issued the order accordingly, decreeing that the village of Dūmah (4) be sold to the merchants at the assessed price of one million five hundred thousand. But Allah’s kindness intervened, and after two or three nights he relented, compensating them instead with revenues from Qawṣūn’s holdings.
Al-Fakhrī, together with those who had originally accompanied him and the emirs and troops who had since joined, remained encamped at the Thaniyyat al-ʿUqāb pass. He recruited from the men of the Beqaa a large contingent—more than a thousand archers—whose commander guarded the mouths of the roads. The arrival of Emir ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Altunbughā with the Damascene forces, the bulk of the Aleppines, and a contingent from Tripoli was now imminent, and al-Fakhrī’s men readied themselves for the encounter.