—Istanbul, that is, Constantinople. Many of them objected to the move at the time, yet what they have invented now is even more outrageous. He excused himself by saying that he was in fact the patriarch of Antioch, and that he had only been allowed to reside in al-Shām al-Sharīf (Blessed Syria) because the deputy of the sultan had ordered him to write, in his own name and in that of his co-religionists, to the ruler of Cyprus, informing him of the humiliation, punishment, and calamity that had befallen them as a result of the Cypriot ruler’s assault on the city of Alexandria. He brought me the letters addressed to that ruler and to the king of Istanbul, read them aloud to me verbatim—may Allah curse him and also those to whom the letters were written.
I conversed with him about their religion and about the explicit creeds held by each of the three sects—the Melkites, the Jacobites (among whom are the Franks and the Copts), and the Nestorians. He grasped a little, but in the end he is a donkey and one of the most unbelieving of the unbelievers—may Allah curse him.
During this month we learned that Sultan Uways ibn Shaykh Ḥasan, king of Iraq and Khurasan, had retaken Baghdad from the eunuch Marjan, who had been his deputy there and had rebelled against him. Uways marched against him with a mighty host, Marjan fled, and Uways entered Baghdad in awe-inspiring fashion; it was a memorable day. (1)
On Saturday, the twenty-seventh of Shaʿban, Amīr Sayf al-Din Baydamur arrived from Egypt by the postal relay. He was an amir of one hundred, commander of a thousand, and had been appointed as Yalbugha’s deputy over all his bureaus in Damascus and elsewhere, as well as admiral of the fleet and overseer of shipbuilding. Upon his arrival he ordered that all sawyers, carpenters, and blacksmiths be assembled and dispatched to Beirut to fell timber; they were sent off on Wednesday, the second of Ramadan, and he intended to follow them there—Allah’s help is sought. Others—additional carpenters, smiths, porters, and the like—were sent after them. Whenever they found anyone riding a donkey they made him dismount and rode it themselves toward the Biqāʿ plain, and they pressed artisans and others into service. Great confusion ensued: families and children wept, and not a single advance on their wages was given, though it would have been proper to give them something beforehand so they might leave it for their children. (2)
Burhān al-Din al-Maqdisī, the Ḥanafī, delivered the Friday sermon in Yalbugha Mosque on behalf of Taqī al-Din, son of the Chief Judge Sharf al-Din al-Kafrī, by an imperial decree and another decree from the deputy of Ṣafad, Asandamur, Yalbugha’s brother. This weighed heavily upon Yalbugha, his grandfather, and their faction. It occurred on Friday, the fourth of Ramadan, in the presence of a large crowd. (3)
On Thursday, the twenty-fourth of the month, the deed of investiture for Chief Judge Sharf al-Din ibn Qāḍī al-Jabal was read for the Ḥanbalī judiciary, replacing Chief Judge Jamāl al-Din al-Mardāwī. The latter, together with the Mālikī judge, had likewise been deposed on account of the matters previously ascribed to them. The deed was read in the Ḥanbalī mihrab, attended by the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanafī judges. Meanwhile the Mālikī was secluded in the hall beneath the western minaret and did not come out to them, having also been removed in favor of Sarī al-Din, the judge of Ḥamā. Troubles and disturbances broke out in al-Ṣāliḥiyya and elsewhere.