The Death of al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ Ismāʿīl (1)

On Wednesday, the third of Rabiʿ al-Akhir of this year, the death of the sultan al-Malik al-Ṣāliḥ ʿImād al-Dīn Ismāʿīl ibn al-Nāṣir ibn al-Manṣūr was officially announced late in the day. He had already entrusted the realm to his full brother al-Malik al-Kāmil Sayf al-Dīn Abū’l-Futūḥ Shaʿbān, who therefore mounted the throne on Thursday, the fourth (2); it was a day of great public ceremony.

The news reached Damascus on Thursday evening, the night before Friday, the twelfth of the month. The courier service to Syria had been suspended for about twenty days on account of the sultan’s illness. Emir Sayf al-Dīn Baygharā (3) arrived to secure the oath of allegiance for al-Malik al-Kāmil, and the senior officers of the army rode out to meet him.

On Friday morning, in the Dār al-Saʿāda, the oath was taken for Sultan al-Malik al-Kāmil by the viceroy, the leading commanders, and the rest of the amirs and troops. The drums of glad tidings were beaten, the city was adorned, and that day the preachers invoked al-Malik al-Kāmil’s name in their sermons. May Allah make him a blessed figure for the Muslims.

On Monday morning, the twenty-second of Rabiʿ al-Akhir, Judge Jamāl al-Dīn Ḥusayn, son of the Chief Judge Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, a Shāfiʿī, delivered a lecture in the Outer Shāmīya Madrasa. His father had relinquished the chair to him and obtained a royal decree confirming the appointment. The judges, notables, and a number of amirs and jurists attended, and he sat between his father and the Ḥanafī judge.

He opened with the Almighty’s words:
“Indeed, We bestowed knowledge upon David and Solomon, and they said, ‘Praise be to Allah, who has favoured us above many of His believing servants’” (Quran 27:15), and the verses that follow.

During the session the theologian Sharīf Majd al-Dīn expressed statements that were objectionable and repugnant. Those present denounced him, so he was required to repent (4) after the lesson concluded, and a ruling affirming his Islam was issued (5).

The viceroy of Damascus, Emir Sayf al-Dīn Ṭuqūzdamur, who was ill and had missed the Friday prayer several times because of it, was summoned to Egypt.

Couriers were dispatched to Aleppo so that its viceroy, Emir Sayf al-Dīn Yalbughā, might come to assume the viceregency of Damascus; it was also reported that Ḥājj Aruqṭāy (6) had been appointed viceroy of Aleppo.