brother of Yalbugha al-Yahyaawi (1), who had formerly served as deputy-governor of Syria and whose daughter is today the Sultan’s wife. His steward reached Damascus on Thursday, the last day of the month, and took up residence in the Dār al-Saʿādah (2). The judges and leading citizens came to greet him and curry his favor, and dishes of hospitality and gifts were presented to him. The report ends; Allah knows best.
An incident that befell a village in Ḥawrān, wherein Allah visited its people with a harsh punishment during this noble month:
The culprits were the most notorious inhabitants of a village in Ḥawrān—an estate belonging to the deputy of Syria. They are Yemeni Ḥalabiyyah known as the Banū Labsah and the Banū Nāshī, and their village is strong and well-fortified, a refuge for every trouble-maker, highwayman, and renegade. One of the devils of Ruwymen al-ʿAshīr, ʿUmar nicknamed al-Dunayṭ (3), sought asylum with them. They gathered abundant arms and set out to plunder al-ʿAshīr.
At that moment the governor of governors, popularly called Shankal Mankal, bore down on them to restrain and admonish them. He demanded that they hand over ʿUmar al-Dunayṭ, but they refused and prepared to fight him, being a large and formidable crowd. He therefore withdrew and wrote to the deputy of the sultanate asking for military support against them and their likes. The deputy sent him a contingent of emirs from the tablkhānāt (military bands) and the ʿashrawāt, together with one hundred mounted archers from the Jund al-Ḥalqa.
When this force surprised them on their own ground, the villagers massed to fight the army, pelting it with stones and catapults and blocking the approach to the settlement. The Turks then rained arrows upon them from every side, killing more than one hundred. The rest turned and fled. The governor of governors captured about sixty men and ordered the heads of the slain to be cut off and hung round the necks of the prisoners. All the peasants’ houses were plundered and the booty handed over to the mamluks of the deputy of the sultanate; not so much as three hundred dirhams’ worth of property was missing.
He then returned to Buṣrā with the clan chiefs in his company. Ibn al-Amir Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ibn Khāṣ Turk—one of the tablkhāna emirs who had fought in the action—gave a detailed account of his part: whenever one of the wounded captives became exhausted, he would order the torch-bearer to slaughter him and hang his head on the remaining prisoners. He did this repeatedly, even severing a young man’s head and suspending it from the neck of the youth’s father, an aged shaykh. Indeed, we belong to Allah and to Him we return.
When the party reached Buṣrā, Shankal impaled one group of the prisoners, impaled another, cut a third group in half, and imprisoned some in the citadel. He erected wooden stakes around the citadel of Buṣrā and hung the heads upon them. The resulting intimidation was more severe than anything recently inflicted on the people of Ḥawrān.
All of this was unleashed upon them because of what their own hands had earned; “and your Lord is never unjust to His servants.” “Thus do We set the wrongdoers over one another because of what they have been earning.” Indeed, we belong to Allah and to Him we return. The account ends.