and they were overjoyed at his assumption of office and arrival—just as they were delighted at the removal of the former superintendent and his departure from the city. He also carried a royal decree that cancelled one-half of the sheep tax: the levy, which had stood at four and a half dirhams, was reduced to two and a quarter. A proclamation to that effect was issued in the city on Monday, the twentieth of Rabiʿ al-Akhir, whereupon the populace rejoiced exceedingly. Praise and bounty belong to Allah. Their prayers for the one who had secured this relief multiplied, for the reduced duty encouraged greater imports, lowered the price of meat for ordinary folk, and yet the treasury continued to receive the same revenue as before. By Allah’s decree, delegations arrived and others returned bearing varied merchandise; from them the royal bureau collected its dues of zakat and brokerage. Many ships likewise made port, and the tithe taken from them amounted to many times the sum remitted in the sheep tax. Praise and gratitude are Allah’s alone. The decree was recited publicly to the people on Friday, after the congregational prayer and before the ʿAsr prayer.

On Monday the twentieth of the same month, the jurist Shams al-Din ibn al-Safadi was beaten in the Dār al-Saʿādah over the matter of the Tawāwīs Khanqah (1). He had come with a group of its members to lodge a complaint against the kātib al-sirr, who also served as shaykh al-shuyūkh. During their discussion of the endower’s stipulations—which they found onerous—Ibn al-Safadi spoke sharply. He was thrown to the ground to be beaten, but intercession secured his release; he spoke again and was spared once more. A third time he was thrown down, flogged, and ordered to prison, from which he was released after two or three nights.

On the morning of Sunday the twenty-sixth, the Shāfiʿī Chief Judge (2) delivered a lesson in his own madrasahs (3). In accordance with the endower’s stipulation, confirmed by his brother after the death of Judge Nāṣir al-Din, the kātib al-sirr, he also attended the inner Nāṣiriyyah lesson. A number of notables and several judges were present. He began with Sūrat al-Fatḥ; they read to him from his father’s commentary on the verse, “Indeed, We have granted you a manifest victory” (48:1).

At dawn on Friday, the first of Jumada al-Awwal, the chief imam led the funeral prayer for Judge Qutb al-Din Muḥammad (4) ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin, magistrate of Homs. Having travelled to Damascus to meet his brother-in-law, the Shāfiʿī Chief Judge Taj al-Din al-Subkī, he fell ill and died there. Funeral prayers were performed for him inside the congregational mosque, as noted, and again outside Bab al-Faraj, after which he was borne to rest at the foot of Mount Qāsiyūn. He was eighty-two years old (5) and had transmitted only a small corpus of ḥadīth. May Allah have mercy on him.