who used to preach in the Umayyad Mosque and in the Tankiz Mosque. His gatherings drew large crowds thanks to his righteousness and the excellence of the useful admonitions he delivered. He was buried on the slope of Mount Qāsiyūn, and his funeral was thronged—may Allah have mercy on him.

On the night of the twenty-seventh of Rajab, which people call the Night of the Miʿrāj, preaching sessions were held in the Umayyad Mosque. Yet the congregation did not assemble as it normally would, because so many had died and many others were occupied with their sick and their dead. That same night a group of people lingered in the tents outside the city; when they came, as was their custom, to enter through Bāb al-Naṣr, a crowd formed between the two gates and many of them perished—much as people were dying these days at funerals. The deputy of the sultan was alarmed; he went out, found them, and ordered that they be rounded up. At daybreak he ordered that they be nailed up, then pardoned them. The city’s superintendent was given a severe beating; his deputy was nailed up that night, and the gatekeeper at Bāb al-Naṣr was likewise punished. He further decreed that no one should walk about after the late night prayer, though he later relaxed the order.

The month of Shaʿbān began and mortality among the people was exceedingly high; at times the city even reeked. Indeed, to Allah we belong and to Him we return.

Shaykh Shams al-Dīn (1) ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, instructor at the Great Qaymariyyah School in the Matraziyyīn quarter, died on Thursday, the thirteenth of Shaʿbān.

On Friday, the fourteenth of Shaʿbān, funeral prayers after the congregational prayer were held for a large number of people, among them the judge ʿImād al-Dīn ibn al-Shīrāzī (2), the city’s muḥtasib. He was one of Damascus’s foremost dignitaries: at one time he supervised the Umayyad Mosque, at others the administration of the endowments, and at one point he held both posts together. He was buried on the slope of Mount Qāsiyūn.

In the last ten days of Shawwāl the amir Qarābughā (3), the deputy governor’s dawādār (4), died in his house west of Ḥikr al-Simāq. Beside it he had built a mausoleum and a mosque for himself. He is the one who established the renovated little market (suwayqa) next to his residence, providing it with two gates, one on the east and one on the west; it was leased at a high rate because of his standing, but later fell into disuse and was abandoned for lack of need. The amirs, judges, and notables attended his funeral, and he was buried in his mausoleum there. He left behind great wealth and abundant holdings, which were seized by his patron, the deputy of the sultan.