Concerning the affairs of Baghdad (1):

Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Baghdādī, one of the city’s leading notables and merchants, together with Shaykh Shihāb al-Dīn al-ʿAṭṭār—the Baghdad wine-broker—told me that after Baghdad was recovered by Uways, king of Iraq and Khurāsān, from the eunuch Marjān, the latter was summoned, graciously treated, and then released. The two of them agreed that the source of the turmoil had been the amir Aḥmad, the brother (2) of the vizier. The sultan therefore had Aḥmad brought before him, stabbed him in the belly with a knife, ripping it open, and ordered some of the amirs to finish him off. The Sunni populace rose in mighty support of this act; the people of Bāb al-Azj seized the post on which he had been displayed and burned it. Order was restored, and they found solace in the death of Shaykh Jamāl al-Dīn al-Anbārī (3), whom the Rāfiḍī vizier had previously slain—whom Allah then swiftly destroyed. End of report.

The death of Chief Judge ʿIzz al-Dīn (4) ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Jamāʿah (5) al-Shāfiʿī:

Within the first ten days of Shaʿbān a letter arrived from Egypt announcing the passing of Chief Judge Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Jamāʿah in Mecca—may Allah honor it—on the tenth of Jumādā al-Ākhirah; he was buried the following day in the Maʿlā cemetery (6). They reported that he died while reciting the Quran.

His companion Shaykh Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Raḥbī—may Allah preserve him—told me that the judge would often say, “I yearn to die after having resigned, and for my death to occur in one of the Two Sanctuaries.” Allah granted him what he wished. He resigned last year, migrated to Mecca, then went on to Medina to visit the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him; he returned to Mecca, where he passed away at the appointed time. May Allah have mercy on him and moisten his grave with His mercy.

He was born in 694 AH and died at the age of seventy-three. He had enjoyed great honor—worldly prestige, impressive rank, eminent posts, and major teaching chairs—yet he stepped down and devoted himself to worship and to residing near the two noble sanctuaries.

Of him one may say—as I wrote in an elegy:
“It is as though you had been forewarned of death, so that … you stored up the choicest provisions.”

On Tuesday, the ninth of Shawwāl, the patriarch Bishārah, surnamed Mikhaʾīl, visited me. He informed me that the bishops of Syria had pledged allegiance to him and installed him as patriarch in Damascus in place of the patriarch of Antioch. I said to him, “This is an innovation in your religion, for there should be only four patriarchates: Alexandria, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Rome.” Thus the patriarchate of Rome was transferred to—