to the front of the Mosque of al-Qubaybāt, where it was set up; the populace came out to look at it, trial shots were fired, and it was intended that the machine accompany the army to the siege.

On Wednesday, the 2nd of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, Emir ʿAlāʾ al-Din Altanbugha al-Mārdānī arrived from Egypt, as was his accustomed practice.⦗1⦘

On Thursday, the 10th of the month, the two senior emirs—Rukn al-Din Baybars al-Ahmadī from Tripoli and ʿAlam al-Din al-Jawlī from Ḥamāh—entered Damascus at daybreak. They joined the state procession and stood with folded arms before the deputy of the sultanate: al-Ahmadī on his right and al-Jawlī on his left. They encamped outside the city, and after only a few days al-Ahmadī departed for Egypt, resuming his habitual post as chief councillor, while al-Jawlī set out for the protected city of Gaza to assume its deputy-governorship. At that time Emir Badr al-Din Masʿūd ibn Khaṭīr was commander of the kettle-drum corps in Damascus.

On Thursday, the 14th of the month, the expeditionary force left Damascus before dawn for the city of al-Karak. Emir Shihāb al-Din ibn Ṣubḥ, wālī al-wulāt in Ḥawrān, was placed in charge of the mangonels, and Emir Sayf al-Din Bahādur al-Awjāqī,⦗2⦘ nicknamed Ḥalāwah, governor of the rural district of Damascus, proceeded to take up the office of wālī al-wulāt in Ḥawrān.

On Friday, the 18th of the month, a dispute arose between the deputy and the Shāfiʿī qāḍī when a letter arrived from Egypt recommending the aforementioned Qāḍī al-Subkī and bearing a decree that added the Friday pulpit to his judgeship, along with a robe of honour from Cairo. The deputy resented this on account of the sons of al-Jalāl, for they had a large household and were poor, and he had already forbidden the qāḍī to pursue the matter. Accordingly, that day he ordered him not to lead the prayer for him at the Kāmilī Window, so the qāḍī rose and led it in the Ghazāliyya instead.

On Sunday, the 20th of the month, Emir Sayf al-Din Urunbugha,⦗4⦘ son-in-law of Sultan al-Malik al-Nāṣir, entered Damascus on his way to Tripoli to assume its deputy-governorship. He travelled with impressive pageantry—fine mounts, pack animals, abundant equipment, and a fully furnished retinue.

On Thursday, the 24th of the month, Emir Badr al-Din ibn al-Khiṭīrī, dismissed from the deputy-governorship of protected Gaza, arrived. On Thursday morning he rode in the official procession with the deputy of the sultanate, dismounted at his residence, and people came to pay their respects.

On Tuesday, the 13th of Ṣafar, the city was decorated in gratitude for Sultan al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ’s recovery from an illness that had afflicted him and from which he was now cured.⦗5⦘ On Friday, the 16th of the same month, shortly before the ʿAṣr prayer, a courier arrived from Egypt summoning the Chief Qāḍī