before the Sultan’s deputy, the entire army standing in formation, with the common folk perched on the store-roofs watching his end. All the Muslims rejoiced—praise and gratitude belong to Allah alone. ⦗1⦘
On Friday, the twenty-eighth of Rabiʿ al-Awwal, a new Friday service was inaugurated in the Shaghūr quarter, in a mosque there known as the Mosque of al-Mazzāz. ⦗2⦘ The sermon was delivered by Jamāl al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh, son of Shaykh Shams al-Dīn Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah. ⦗3⦘ A discussion then arose about the propriety of this innovation. The matter reached the point that the residents of the quarter went to the horse market on the day of the viceroy’s procession, bearing caliphal banners taken from their mosque together with Qurʾāns. They made their way to the Sultan’s deputy and asked that the Friday sermon continue to be held in their mosque. He granted their request on the spot. A dispute then flared over the legality of the decision, but the Hanbalī judge ruled in their favor, allowing the practice to stand, and many protracted contentions followed.
On Sunday, the seventh of Rabiʿ al-Ākhir, the great emir Sayf al-Dīn Uljībughā al-ʿĀdilī passed away and was buried in the tomb that he had built long ago outside Bab al-Jābiya, a site well known by his name. He had held the emirate for nearly sixty years. During the campaign of Arghun Shāh he had received a blow that injured his right hand, yet he continued in command, honored and exalted, until his death—may Allah Most High have mercy on him. ⦗4⦘ ⦗5⦘
A very strange affair
When I went to congratulate Emir Nāṣir al-Dīn ibn Lāqush on his appointment as deputy of Baalbek, I found there a young man. Those present informed me that he was the one who had been female and to whom a male organ had later appeared. His story had become famous in the land of Tripoli, spread among the people of Damascus and elsewhere, and everyone was talking about it. When I saw him wearing a Turkish cap, I summoned him to me and questioned him in the presence of those gathered. ⦗6⦘ I asked, “How did this come about?” He grew shy, a blush like that of women covering his face, and he replied: “I was a woman for fifteen years. My family married me to three husbands, but none of them could approach me, and each one divorced me. Then a strange condition befell me: my breasts shrank and flattened, and sleep would overwhelm me night and day. After that, a small swelling began to emerge from the site of the vagina, little by little, increasing until something resembling a penis and two testicles appeared.” I asked whether it was large or small. He blushed again and said that it was small, about the width of a finger.