The year opened while the plague that had been decimating the population was still present, though it had markedly subsided—praise be to Allah.

On Saturday the Chief Judge, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Abū al-Baqāʾ al-Subkī, set out for Egypt, having been summoned by the amir Yalbūghā; in his letter he supplied the amir with answers to several legal questions. After him, on Monday the fourteenth of Muḥarram, Chief Judge Tāj al-Dīn—at that time the acting judge of Damascus and its Friday preacher—departed on the swift post horses. Following the two judges, Shaykh Sharaf al-Dīn, the Ḥanbalī son of Qāḍī al-Jabal, was likewise summoned to Egypt; Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn al-Manfalūṭī also set out under the same order.

In the middle ten days of Muḥarram our colleague Shaykh Shams al-Dīn (1) ibn al-ʿAṭṭār al-Shāfiʿī passed away. He was a man of virtue and study, keen of understanding, and had penned in his own hand a number of valuable notes. He served as imam in the prison oratory adjacent to the Miḥrab of ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn within the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, was a senior instructor there, taught jurisprudence in several madrasas, and maintained the Wādiʿiyyah school of ḥadīth. He had passed the age of fifty by some years and had never married.

The Syrian ḥajj caravan reached Damascus on the twenty-fourth of Muḥarram. They arrived full of gratitude, praising Allah for the security and low prices that marked this year.

On Sunday, the eleventh of Ṣafar, our colleague Shaykh ʿImād al-Dīn Ismāʿīl ibn Khalīfah al-Shāfiʿī delivered a lesson at the Fathiyyah Madrasa (2), attended by a number of notables and scholars. He opened with the Almighty’s words:
“Indeed, the number of months with Allah is twelve months” (Qur’an 9:36).

On Thursday the fifteenth a proclamation was issued throughout the city compelling the dhimmīs to observe the marks of humiliation: reducing the size of their turbans, refraining from employment in any public function, riding neither horses nor mules but only donkeys—and then side-saddle upon a plain saddle-cloth—wearing bells around their necks and the necks of their women in the bathhouses, and making one shoe black in contrast to the other. The Muslims rejoiced at this order and prayed for the one who had decreed it.

On Sunday, the third of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, Chief Judge Tāj al-Dīn returned from Egypt, retaining both the judiciary and the Friday pulpit. The people went out to welcome him and congratulated him on his safe return.

On Thursday the seventh, Qadi al-Ṣāḥib al-Bahnasi donned the robe of investiture for the oversight of the bureaus in Damascus. He received the people’s congratulations, began his duties with stern resolve, and in most departments appointed men who were itinerant and of humble station.

On Monday the eleventh, Chief Judge Badr al-Dīn (3) ibn al-Fataḥ mounted the post horses bound for the Egyptian lands