who had been his vizier in Egypt and had been detained in Alexandria together with Mughlatāy,¹ was sent off to Ṣafad where he remained in enforced idleness, while Mughlatāy was ordered to stay on in Tripoli, likewise idle, until Allah—Mighty and Majestic—should decree otherwise. And that is the end of the matter; Allah knows best.

[A Remarkable Oddity]

On Monday, the 16th of Jumada I, a man from the Rāfiḍīs, a native of al-Ḥilla,² passed through the Great Mosque of Damascus reviling “the first person who wronged the family of Muhammad,” repeating the phrase without pause. He neither joined the congregation in prayer nor took part in the funeral prayer that was under way; even while the people were praying he kept repeating the curse aloud. When we had finished the prayer, I alerted the worshippers, who seized him. The Chief Shāfiʿī Judge happened to be present at that funeral.

I approached the man and questioned him:
“Who is it that wronged the family of Muhammad?”
He answered, “Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq.”
Then, in a loud voice that all could hear, he proclaimed, “May Allah curse Abū Bakr, ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, Muʿāwiya and Yazīd,” repeating the curse twice. The judge ordered him to prison. Later the Mālikī judge had him brought before him and flogged with whips, yet he continued to scream curses and insults—words that could issue only from a wretch. This accursed individual was ʿAlī ibn Abī al-Faḍl ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn ibn Kathīr—may Allah disgrace him.

On Thursday, the 17th, a formal session was convened for him in the Dār al-Saʿāda. The four chief judges attended, and he was summoned. By Allah’s decree the deputy of the Mālikī judge sentenced him to death. He was taken at once, his head struck off beneath the Citadel, his body burned by the populace, and his head paraded through the city while they cried out, “This is the recompense of anyone who reviles the Companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).”

I had debated this ignoramus in the Mālikī court and found that he held some of the doctrines propagated by the extremist Rāfiḍīs; he had learned certain heretical and unbelieving ideas from the followers of Ibn Muṭahhar—may Allah disgrace him and them alike.

A royal decree then arrived compelling the People of the Covenant to abide by the ʿUmari stipulations.³ On Friday, the 18th of Rajab al-Fard, the decree of the Sultan enforcing the ʿUmari stipulations, together with further additions, was read aloud in the Maqṣūra of the Great Mosque of Damascus in the presence of the deputy of the Sultanate, the Bedouin amirs, the senior amirs, the men of authority and counsel, and the general public.

Among those additional clauses were the following: that they are not to be employed in any of the governmental or military dīwāns, nor in any capacity whatsoever; that none of their turbans may exceed ten cubits in length; that they may not ride horses or mules, but only donkeys, and then seated sideways upon packsaddles; that they may not enter the public bathhouses unless marked by a bell, a ring of yellow brass, or of lead; that their women are not to share bathhouses with Muslim women but must have bathhouses exclusively for themselves; that the wrap-around cloth of a Christian woman is to be of blue linen, and that of a Jewish woman of yellow linen;