—magnificent objects fit for the Noble Iwan. On the morning of Saturday the fourteenth he set out, and the judges, together with the leading chamberlains and emirs, accompanied him to bid him farewell.

At the beginning of Dhu al-Hijjah a letter, written in the viceroy’s own hand, arrived from the Sultan’s deputy addressed to the Chief Judge Tāj al-Dīn (1) the Shafiʿi. In it he summoned him to al-Quds al-Sharīf (Jerusalem) to visit the Tomb of the Friend (Abraham) and recounted the kindness, honor, esteem, freedom, and generosity the Sultan had shown him in the form of horses, gifts, money, and revenue. The Chief Judge therefore departed toward him on Friday after the congregational prayer, mounted on six post horses and carrying appropriate gifts and presents, and he returned on Friday evening, the eighteenth, to his orchard (2).

During this month and the one before it very great floods occurred in many places. We ourselves saw their traces in the city of Baalbek: they destroyed a large number of trees, cut through many spots, and the marks of their flow remained visible in numerous areas. One flood struck the land of Jaʿlūs, causing enormous damage; the qadi of that district drowned in it along with several righteous men who had been standing on a rise. A tremendous surge overtook them, and they could neither ward it off nor halt it, so they perished.

Another torrent fell in the district of Husiyya (3) Jamāl, destroying many trees, sheep, grape-vines, and other property.

Yet another deluge struck the countryside of Aleppo, in which a great number of Turkmens and others—men, women, children, sheep, and camels—perished. I read this in a letter from an eyewitness who stated that hailstones fell upon them, each weighing as much as seven hundred dirhams, some larger than that and some smaller. That is where the report ends (4).

A decree was issued obligating the Qalandariyyah to stop shaving their beards, eyebrows, and mustaches; this, according to the unanimous agreement recorded by Ibn Ḥazm (5), is forbidden, although some jurists have merely regarded it as disliked.

A letter from the Sultan—may Allah aid him—arrived in Damascus on Tuesday, the fifteenth of Dhu al-Hijjah, compelling them to adopt the attire