It was related of Sulayman ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwan that one day he went out to attend the Friday prayer. He was of perfect stature and handsome appearance. Dressed in a green robe, a young man in the very fullness of youth, he kept casting admiring glances at his figure and his clothes, pleased with himself.

When he reached the courtyard of the residence, a jinniyya appeared to him in the likeness of one of his favorites and recited:
“You are a splendid possession—if only you could remain;
Yet no human being is granted lasting life.
I know of no fault in you worth mentioning
Save that you, too, must perish.” (1)

He then ascended the pulpit of the mosque in Damascus and addressed the people. His voice was powerful, audible to everyone in the mosque while he stood on the pulpit, but it weakened little by little until even those in the royal enclosure could no longer hear him. When the prayer was finished he was carried to his home, where he summoned the slave-girl whose likeness the jinniyya had assumed and asked, “How did you recite those two verses to me?” She replied, “I did not recite anything to you.”

He said, “Allahu akbar! By Allah, my own obituary has been read to me.” He therefore stipulated that the caliph after him should be his cousin ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAziz—may Allah have mercy on him (2).

The deposed deputy of Tripoli arrived ill, accompanied by Emir Sayf al-Din Asandamur (3), who had been deputy of Damascus; both had been residing in Tripoli. On the morning of Saturday, the twenty-sixth of the month, they entered the Dār al-Saʿādah, but the deputy of the sultanate paid them no particular honor.

During this month the renovation of the portico west of Bab al-Natafaniyyin was completed: its balustrades were repaired, its walls and mihrab white-washed, windows were opened in the railings, and a Qur’an recitation after Maghrib was endowed there. It is said that a man saw a dream, related it to the deputy of the sultanate, and the latter ordered the restoration.

In this same month construction resumed on the madrasa adjacent to that spot by the window. It had first been founded by ʿAlam al-Din ibn Hilal (4); when his property was confiscated it was taken over and annexed to the sultan. Building was carried out on the original foundations: five windows were opened on the eastern side, together with a southern door and mihrab, an Iraqi-style pool was installed, the walls were laid in alternating black and white stone, and the upper sections were finished with baked brick. The result was of exceptional beauty. Sultan al-Nasir Hasan had earlier decreed that it be made a school for orphans, but the work was not completed before his death, as we have previously mentioned (5).