and I too was summoned, so I attended with them in connection with the Tadmuriyyah Madrasa and on account of the endower’s kinsmen, who maintained that he had set aside one-third of the endowment for them. The Hanbali judge championed their case with the utmost zeal.

During the first ten days of Rajab an enormous swarm of locusts appeared and began to spread; their numbers kept increasing until they blanketed the ground, swarming in every direction. They devastated many vineyards, melon beds, and valuable crops, destroying a great deal of people’s produce (1). Truly, we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.

On Monday, the 3rd of Shaʿban, the judges and the administrator of the public treasury went to Bab Kaysan, inspected the gate and its condition, for the deputy of the Sultan intended to open it so that the people might walk through it. Because of the countless locusts, the populace was left without many grains and other kinds of produce—indeed, we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.

Opening of Bab Kaysan (2) after it had been closed for about two hundred years:

On Wednesday, the 26th of Shaʿban, the deputy of the Sultan and the judges assembled at Bab Kaysan, and the craftsmen began to open it by virtue of a royal decree that had arrived from Egypt. The deputy ordered the work, with the judges’ authorization, and the month of Ramadan was sighted while they were still engaged in the task.

In the last ten days of Shaʿban the noble Shams al-Din Muhammad (3) ibn ʿAli ibn al-Hasan ibn Hamzah al-Husayni (4) passed away. He was an accomplished hadith scholar who authored important works on the discipline (5). He read, listened, compiled, and wrote biographical entries for the transmitters mentioned in Imam Ahmad’s Musnad, produced a useful abridgement (6) on rijāl, and held the chair of hadith endowed in his house by Bahāʾ al-Din al-Qasim ibn ʿAsakir (7) inside Bab Tuma.

The readings of Sahih al-Bukhari were completed at the end of Ramadan.