, honored with an advance payment of one thousand and with further stipends awaiting him there. Yet when Thursday, the twenty-seventh of that same month arrived, the people were taken aback to find that he had been led into the Victorious Citadel under arrest, placed under the strictest confinement. All were astonished that such grief should follow so quickly upon their joy; but whatever Allah wills comes to pass.
On Wednesday, the 4th of Rabiʿ al-Awwal, a council was convened on account of the chamberlain in the shrine area of the Great Mosque.
On Thursday the chamberlain was brought from the Citadel to the Dār al-Ḥadīth, where the judges assembled because of lawsuits in which some of them were claiming their due from him. Then, on Monday the 9th, a royal courier arrived from Egypt demanding the aforesaid chamberlain. He was therefore released from the royal Citadel and went to the Deputy of the Sultanate, kissed his foot, returned home, and that very day mounted up for Egypt once more, honored and respected. A crowd of commoners and riff-raff walked before him, praying for his well-being. This is one of the strangest events on record: the man suffered severe hardship through his imprisonment at Ṣarḫad, was released, then jailed in the Citadel of Damascus, and released yet again—all within roughly a single month (1).
On Sunday, the 12th of Jumada I, news arrived that the Deputy of the Sultanate had been removed from Damascus. He therefore did not ride in the Monday procession, nor did he attend the Court of Justice. The report was soon confirmed: he was to take up the deputyship of Aleppo, while the Deputy of Aleppo (2) would come to Damascus. Many people were saddened, for the outgoing deputy was pious, dignified, and treated the scholars kindly. Yet his entourage failed to carry out his orders, and from that neglect widespread disorder arose; they usurped much of the provinces, wars broke out among their inhabitants, and tribal factions flared up. To Allah we belong and to Him we return.
At dawn on Saturday, the 25th, Emir ʿAlī al-Mārdānī left Damascus in haste, arrayed in the full pomp of the deputyship, bound for the protected city of Aleppo. He pitched his pavilion at Waṭʾat Barza, and the people came out simply to watch him depart.
That same day, shortly after the deputy’s departure, Emir Sayf al-Dīn Ṭaydamur, the chamberlain, entered from Egypt to resume the office of chief chamberlain in great splendor. The populace greeted him with candles and invoked blessings upon him. Later that very day he rode out to pay homage to the Commander of the Emirs at Waṭʾat Barza, kissed his hand, received robes of honor from the emirs, and the two men were reconciled. The matter ended there; Allah knows best.
[The Entry of the Deputy of the Sultanate, Manjak, into Damascus]
On the morning of Thursday, the 24th of Jumada II, he arrived from the direction of Aleppo, preceded—as was customary—by the emirs and the army. Candles were lit, the populace poured out to welcome him, and some even spent the night on the rooftops. It was a day of awe-inspiring spectacle (3).