is inhabited by the Druze and the Rāfiḍah. I copied this from the handwriting of its author, Muḥammad ibn Balabān (1), addressed to his friend; both letters are now in my possession at Qabbān (2). By Allah, what a marvel!

In this same month—that is, Dhū al-Qaʿdah—a dispute arose between Shaykh Ismāʿīl ibn al-ʿIzz the Ḥanafī and some of his fellow Ḥanafīs because he had wronged certain people during litigation. He was therefore summoned to the law court for three consecutive days as though he were a defiant offender, and when he failed to appear, the judge Shihāb al-Dīn (3) al-Kafrī, the acting Ḥanafī qāḍī, declared his probity void. News soon came that he had headed for Egypt, so the deputy sent men after him to bring him back; they reprimanded him and then released him to his home. The chief Ḥanafī judge interceded for him, which was deemed acceptable—praise and thanks belong to Allah.

[Then entered the year 758 AH]

This year dawned with the caliph, the Commander of the Faithful al-Muʿtaḍid bi-Allah Abū Bakr ibn al-Mustakfī bi-Allah Abū al-Rabīʿ Sulaymān al-ʿAbbāsī, in office.

The Sultan of Islam over Egypt and its dependencies, over the Syrian territories and their environs, the Two Holy Sanctuaries, and beyond, was al-Malik al-Nāṣir Ḥasan ibn al-Malik al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn al-Malik al-Manṣūr Qalāwūn al-Ṣāliḥī. He had in Egypt neither viceroy nor vizier; all affairs, incoming and outgoing, were referred to the two great emirs Sayf al-Dīn Shaykhūn and Sarghitmush al-Nāṣirī. Egypt’s judges were the same as those mentioned for the previous year.

The deputy over Syria in Damascus was ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī al-Mardānī, and the judges of Damascus were likewise those already cited. And thus that section concludes.

An exceedingly strange occurrence

On Wednesday, the twenty-fourth of Rajab of this year, a group of residents of the Great Mosque in Damascus—from the shrine of ʿAlī and elsewhere—set out, followed by a number of mendicants and Maghribīs. They came to places suspected of selling wine and hashish, smashed many wine vessels, poured out their contents, and destroyed a large quantity of hashish.