large, luminous clerestory windows were installed. In the qiblah wall he opened a handsome iwan whose depth he increased many-fold over what it had been, and he white-washed the whole of it with fine, high-quality plaster. Cupboards and service rooms were repaired, new carpets and coverlets were provided, and many other good things besides. May Allah reward him and grant him the best of recompense—Amen.

Groups of people, both notable and common, gathered beneath the tent. On the following Friday the viceroy entered the building after the congregational prayer; he was delighted by the restorations he beheld. When he was told what its state had been before these works, he praised the superintendent’s achievement.

At the beginning of Rabiʿ al-Akhir, the Chief Judge Taj al-Din al-Shubbaki returned from Egypt to resume the judiciary of Syria, arriving on Tuesday the fourteenth. He first offered salutations to the viceroy in the Dār al-Saʿādah, then went to the house of Emir ʿAlī (1) in the Kassāʿīn quarter and greeted him, after which he proceeded to the ʿĀdiliyyah before noon. People of every rank came to pay their respects and congratulate him on his return, and he welcomed them cordially. On the morning of Thursday the sixteenth he donned the robe of investiture in the Dār al-Saʿādah, then came in imposing splendor to the ʿĀdiliyyah, where his decree of appointment was read in the presence of the judges, dignitaries, poets, and panegyrists, all of whom offered their congratulations. (2)

Chief Judge Taj al-Din also reported the death of Ḥusayn (3) son of Sultan al-Malik al-Nāṣir—his only surviving son. Many emirs and high officials rejoiced at the news, given the youth’s sharp temper and his perpetration of reprehensible deeds.

He further reported the death of Judge Fakhr al-Din Sulaymān (4) son of Judge ʿImād al-Din ibn al-Shayrjī (5). He had been appointed market inspector (ḥisbah) of Damascus in place of his father, who had voluntarily resigned because of age and frailty; he received the robe of office in Egypt and needed only to mount the postal relay, when he fell ill for a day or two and was taken to Allah’s mercy. His father suffered grievously; people offered him consolation, and I found him patient and resigned, yet tearful, uttering the istirjāʿ, and deeply pained. End.

[A momentous announcement: one half of the sheep tax abolished]

With the appointment of Saʿd al-Din Mājid (6) son of al-Tāj Isḥāq, newly arrived from Egypt, to the superintendency of the state bureaus in place of his predecessor, the people rejoiced.