of the Muslims and to abandon the dress of foreigners and Zoroastrians. No one was to be allowed to enter the Sultan’s domains until he discarded that innovated style and reprehensible clothing; whoever refused was to be disciplined according to the Sacred Law and uprooted from his post entirely. What would truly have been fitting was to order them to give up eating that contemptible ḥashīsha (cannabis) and to apply the prescribed penalty to anyone who consumed it or became intoxicated by it (1), as some jurists have ruled. In any case, a proclamation to this effect was announced throughout every quarter of the city and its environs on the morning of Wednesday—and to Allah belong all praise and grace (2).

During this same month we received word of the death of the righteous Shaykh Aḥmad (3) ibn Mūsā al-Zurʿī in the city of Ḥibraṣ (4) on Tuesday, the fifth of Dhu al-Ḥijjah. He was one of those tried with the duty of enjoining right and forbidding wrong, looking after people’s interests before the Sultan and the state, and he enjoyed respect among both elite and common folk. May Allah have mercy on him.

We also learned of the death of Emir Sayf al-Dīn Kajkan ibn Lāqush (5), who had served as chamberlain and commander in Damascus; he was later removed from all his posts, banished by the Sultan to Tripoli, and died there.

The viceroy, Emir Sayf al-Dīn Baydamur, returned from Egypt. The Sultan had shown him exceptional honor and kindness. On his way he passed through al-Quds al-Sharīf, spending the Day of ʿArafah and the Day of Sacrifice there. He then took the road through the forest of Arsūf (6) to hunt, but a bout of fever struck him and prevented that, so he hurried on and entered Damascus on the morning of Monday, the twenty-first of the month, in magnificent pomp, vast authority, and with growing prestige. The populace came out to watch and gaze at him. He entered wearing a splendid, embroidered qabāʾ (long robe), preceded—according to custom—by the hufiyyah, the shālīshiyyah, and others. His avowed intention is to benefit the populace and to examine and reform the affairs of the awqāf (pious endowments) after the manner of Tankiz—may Allah have mercy on him. And Allah knows best.