In that same month a dispute arose among the Ḥanbalīs over the question of munāqala (the exchange of waqf property). Ibn Qāḍī al-Jabal (1), himself a Ḥanbalī, had issued a ruling permitting such an exchange in respect to the registered real estate of Emir Sayf al-Din Ṭaydamur al-Ismāʿīlī (2), chief of the chamberlains, transferring it to another plot of land that he then endowed under the same conditions as the original residence. He proceeded according to his own legal procedure, but the three other judges—the Shāfiʿī, Ḥanafī, and Mālikī—nullified his decision. The Ḥanbalī judge, Chief Justice Jamāl al-Din al-Mardāwī al-Maqdisī, became incensed and convened several sessions on the matter; the discussion grew protracted. Many of those present claimed that Imam Aḥmad’s position limits munāqala to cases of dire necessity in which the original endowment can no longer be utilized, and that exchanging property merely for a greater benefit or advantage is impermissible. They therefore refused to accept what Shaykh Taqī al-Din Ibn Taymiyyah had affirmed and transmitted from Imam Aḥmad through numerous chains—via his two sons Ṣāliḥ (3) and Ḥarb, Abū Dāwūd, and others—namely, that munāqala is lawful when a preponderant benefit exists. Ibn Taymiyyah even composed a separate treatise on the issue; I have examined it and found it exceptionally fine and useful—so convincing that anyone with a taste for jurisprudence who reads it cannot doubt that it reflects Imam Aḥmad’s doctrine (may Allah have mercy on him).

Imam Aḥmad, in the narration of his son Ṣāliḥ, cited as evidence a report he related from Yazīd ibn ʿAwf, from al-Masʿūdī, from al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad: that ʿUmar wrote to Ibn Masʿūd instructing him to move the congregational mosque of Kūfa to the site of the date-sellers’ market and to relocate the market to the place of the old congregational mosque (4). Ibn Masʿūd carried it out. This provides the clearest proof for relying solely on considerations of public interest, for there was no necessity to turn the old mosque into a market. Admittedly, the chain is broken between al-Qāsim and ʿUmar, and between al-Qāsim and Ibn Masʿūd; nevertheless, the leading authority of the school accepted the report and used it as evidence, and its implication here is plain. A formal hearing on the issue was therefore held on Monday, the twenty-eighth of the month.

On the night of Wednesday, the twenty-fourth of Jumādā I, a massive fire broke out outside Bāb al-Faraj. It consumed many qaysāriyahs belonging to Tāz and Yalbughā, the qaysāriyah of the eunuch owned by the daughter of Tankiz, and numerous others, together with houses and shops. An enormous amount of people’s goods, copperware, merchandise, and the like—valued at a million or more, apart from the real estate itself—was lost. Truly, to Allah we belong and to Him we return. Many people remarked that those qaysāriyahs had been rife with vice, usury, gambling, and other wrongdoing (5).

On the twenty-seventh of Jumādā I news arrived that the Franks—may Allah curse them—had seized a city