al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah Ahmad al-Qabi
Second Cairo caliph [661–701], of al-Mustarshid's line — he escaped the sack to the Arabs, fought the Tatars at Ana, Haditha, Hit and Anbar, reigned first at Aleppo where Abd al-Halim ibn Taymiyya swore him, then ruled Cairo forty years, first Abbasid buried by Sayyida Nafisa. At his Cairo bay'a on 8 Muharram 661 Baybars extended his hand and swore first, then the notables, and al-Hakim invested Baybars with the sultanate; next day's khutba opened 'Praise God who raised for the Abbasid house a pillar and a backer' — and the caliph was sequestered at the Citadel of the Mountain in 663.
Reign · Abbasid Caliphate of Cairo · no. 2 in the chain · 1262–1302 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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Al-Dhahabi begins the study of hadith at Damascus, 690/1291
Al-Dhahabi began hearing hadith at Damascus in 690/1291 or 691 under Yusuf al-Mizzi, Umar ibn Kawwas, Ahmad ibn Hibat Allah ibn Asakir and Yusuf ibn Ahmad al-Kamuli, and studied law under Kamal al-Din ibn al-Zamlikani, Burhan al-Din al-Fazari and Kamal al-Din ibn Qadi Shubba; he was a Shafi'i. Ibn Hajar records that he pursued the quest for some twenty years, hearing much from Ibn Qudayr, Ibn Asakir and Yusuf al-Mizzi.
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Al-Dhahabi heads a reading session at the Umayyad Mosque, Muharram 700/1300
The first session whose headship al-Dhahabi assumed was a reading circle in the Great Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, in the first gallery of Zakariyya, in place of the blind reciter Shams al-Din al-Marraqi, in Muharram 700, shortly after his return from his Egyptian journey.
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Al-Dhahabi's hadith journeys, c. 700/1300
Al-Dhahabi travelled in quest of hadith: he heard at Baalbek from Ibn Khulayk ibn Ulwan and Zaynab bint Umar ibn al-Kindi, at Mecca from al-Tuzari, at Aleppo from Shawkar al-Zayni, at Nablus from al-Imad ibn Badran, at Alexandria from Abu al-Hasan al-Iraqi and Yahya al-Sawwaf, and stayed longest at Cairo under Ibn Mansur al-Ifriqi and chiefly Taqi al-Din Ibn Daqiq al-Id — until his teachers passed 1,300, whose biographies he collected in his Mu'jam. Ibn Hajar notes he produced some thirty travel parts of his own.
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Baybars expels al-Nawawi from Damascus to Nawa, 676/1277
Al-Nawawi's standing with the people emboldened him to petition the Mamluk sultan Baybars to lift the war taxes imposed on the people of Syria and to protect the madrasa teachers from a cut in their stipends. When the petition failed and a fatwa approving the exactions was put before the jurists, al-Nawawi alone refused to sign, and Baybars expelled him from Damascus to Nawa.
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Al-Nawawi finishes the Minhaj and the Rawda, 669/1270-71
In 669/1270-71 al-Nawawi completed two works: the Minhaj al-Talibin, an abridgement of al-Rafiʿi's Muharrar, and the Rawda, an abridged commentary on al-Ghazali's Wajiz. With its two great commentaries, Ibn Hajar's Tuhfa and al-Ramli's Nihaya, the Minhaj came to be regarded from the tenth Islamic century as the supreme authority of the Shafiʿi school.
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Al-Nawawi completes al-Tahrir fi alfaz al-Tanbih, 671/1272-73
In 671/1272-73 al-Nawawi completed al-Tahrir fi alfaz al-Tanbih, counted with al-Umda fi tashih al-Tanbih among the earliest of his works; it belongs to the linguistic studies that also produced the Tahdhib al-asma' wal-lughat.
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Al-Qurtubi composes al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Qur'an and his other books, c. 670/1272
Al-Qurtubi assembled his Qur'an commentary in fifteen volumes, explained the Most Beautiful Names of God in two (al-Asna), and wrote al-Tadhkira on the matters of the hereafter, a commentary on al-Taqassi and other useful works. Al-Dhahabi said caravans carry his great commentary. The tafsir stands out for its wealth of hadiths, its attention to deriving rulings and clarifying the Law's meaning, and its sparing use of isra'iliyyat.
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Al-Subki hears hadith and studies in Egypt in his youth, c. 700/1301
Al-Subki heard hadith in his youth in Egypt, and was among those who trained in disputation under Sayf al-Din Isa ibn Dawud al-Baghdadi al-Hanafi, who lived in Egypt until his death in Jumada I 705.
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The killing of al-Malik al-Ashraf Khalil in 693 AH
In 693 the amir Baydara murdered al-Ashraf Salah al-Din Khalil as he sat alone after the hunt, was enthroned as al-Malik al-Qahir, then the Khasakiyya under Kitbugha routed and killed him and restored al-Nasir Muhammad; the vizier Ibn al-Sal'us was seized and stripped — warned in verse 'beware the bite of al-Shuja'i', he died of it — and when al-Shuja'i besieged Kitbugha in the Citadel the sultan's mamluks killed him and paraded him through the town to public joy.
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Assault on Alaro Castle (1285)
Draft card for Assault on Alaro Castle (1285); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Alcoy (1276)
Draft card for Battle of Alcoy (1276); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Arjona
Draft card for Battle of Arjona; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Bapheus
Draft card for the Battle of Bapheus in 1302, Osman I's first major victory over the Byzantines; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Beas River
Draft card for the Battle of the Beas in 1285, Sultan Balban's repulse of the Mongol invasion; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Besalú (1285)
Draft card for Battle of Besalú (1285); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Domaniç
Draft card for the Battle of Domaniç in 1287, one of Osman ibn Ertugrul's first raids on the Byzantines; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Dongola
Draft card for the Battle of Dongola in 1276, the Mamluk expedition against Nubian Makuria; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Elbistan
Draft card for the Battle of Elbistan in 1277, Baybars' great victory over the Ilkhanid army; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Martos
Draft card for the Battle of Martos in 1275, the Marinid–Granadan victory over Castile; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Moclín
Draft card for the Battle of Moclín in 1280, the Santiago knights' disaster before the Granadans; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Mount Armenia (1282)
Draft card for the Battle of Mount Armenia in about 1282, a clash in Ilkhanid-age Anatolia; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Saint Mary (1285)
Draft card for Battle of Saint Mary (1285); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of the Tafna (1281)
Draft card for the Battle of the Tafna in 1281, of Ya'qub ibn Abd al-Haqq's wars; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Wadi al-Khaznadar
Draft card for the Battle of Wadi al-Khaznadar (Third Homs) in 1299, Ghazan Khan's victory over the Mamluks; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Zonglos (1293)
Draft card for Battle of Zonglos (1293); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Baybars raids Cilicia, 673
Ramadan 673 — al-Zahir raided the Cilician lands: Masisa, Adana and Ayas; the army came home with great captives and booty beyond count.
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Death of al-Zahir Baybars, 676
Mid-Muharram 676 — Baybars sickened at his Ablaq palace by Damascus's hippodrome and died thirteen days later (Dhahabi: Thursday 28 Muharram). His death concealed, the na'ib Bilbak marched the litter south feigning a sick sultan until the army was inside Egypt; then the mourning was declared and the amirs swore to his son al-Malik al-Sa'id. Forty Frankish fortresses had fallen to him by the sword.
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Baybars takes Krak des Chevaliers and Akkar, 669 AH
In Sha'ban 669 al-Zahir Baybars took the fortress of the Kurds by the sword — the greatest and strongest of the Hospitaller castles — then besieged the fortress of Akkar and took it by safe-conduct, and the ruler of Tripoli made a ten-year truce with him.
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The Euphrates crossing to relieve al-Bira, 671
The Tatars came down to the Euphrates bank and invested al-Bira; the sultan raced from Damascus and ordered the ford — Qalawun, Baysari and Baybars himself first across — the army fell on them, made a great slaughter and took two hundred.
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The mangonel duel of al-Bira, 674
Thirty thousand riders sat before al-Bira in 674 and set mangonels on its citadel — their gunner a Muslim. The garrison's reply came over his head; when he jeered that the town would rest easier missing his arm, the defenders cut the arm off their own engine's man and hurled it — it smashed the Tatar mangonel, and the sortie came out killing, looting and burning the machines.
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Al-Dhahabi is born at Damascus, 673/1274
Abu Abd Allah Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Uthman ibn Qaymaz, al-Dhahabi, of Turkmen origin, al-Fariqi by forebear, of Damascus, a Shafi'i, was born on 3 Rabi' II 673 at Damascus; the Encyclopaedia of Islam gives his birth at Damascus or Mayyafariqin on 1 or 3 Rabi' II, corresponding to 5 or 7 October 1274, and records that his milk-brother al-Ala ibn al-Munajja Ahmad ibn Abi al-Khayr issued him an ijaza in his birth year.
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Al-Safadi is born at Safad, 696/1297
Salah al-Din Khalil ibn Aybak al-Safadi was born at Safad, his family's home town, about 696/1297; his father, the amir Izz al-Din Aybak, was of Turkic origin and showed no concern for the boy's religious-legal studies until he turned twenty, whereupon the youth sought learning on his own.
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Birth of Taqi al-Din al-Subki in Egypt, Safar 683/April 1284
Ali ibn Abd al-Kafi ibn Ali ibn Tamam — Taqi al-Din Abu al-Hasan al-Subki al-Ansari al-Khazraji al-Shafi'i — was born in Safar 683/April 1284 in Egypt; his family traced its origin to the town of Subk in the Manf district of the western Nile Delta.
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Birth of Ibn Fadl Allah al-Umari at Damascus, 700/1301
Shihab al-Din Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Fadl Allah al-Adawi al-Umari was born at Damascus on 3 Shawwal 700 (12 June 1301), into a Shafi'i family already established in the Mamluk chancery; the nasab he himself dictated traced the line back to Umar ibn al-Khattab — whence the nisba al-Umari.
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Birth of Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya at Damascus, 7 Safar 691/29 January 1292
Shams al-Din Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr ibn Ayyub ibn Sa'd ibn Hurayz al-Zur'i al-Dimashqi, known as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, was born at Damascus on 7 Safar 691/29 January 1292; his father was the superintendent (qayyim) of the Jawziyya madrasa, which served as a court of law for the Hanbali qadi al-qudat of Damascus; Ibn Hajar gives his birth year as 691.
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Burning of Peralada (1285)
Draft card for Burning of Peralada (1285); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Chem River Battle (1300)
Draft card for Chem River Battle (1300); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Conquest of Tripoli
Draft card for the conquest of Tripoli in 1289, Qalawun's capture of the Crusader county's city; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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The Great Fire of Damascus in 681 AH
The great fire of Damascus in 681 — three days and nights from the goldsmiths' quarter; al-Katti 'al-Fashusha' lost fifteen thousand volumes, yet no person burned; a wind-blown scrap carried verses of surrender.
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The great Damascus flood, Sha'ban 683
Sha'ban 683 — the night flood at Damascus: the Egyptian army camped in the wadi was swept away beyond description, houses ruined, channels drowned, the water broke Bab al-Faradis's lock and bridge and reached the Muqaddamiyya.
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Death of Imam al-Nawawi at Nawa, 676/1277
Al-Nawawi died unmarried in his father's house at Nawa. Shadharat al-Dhahab gives the night of Wednesday 14 Rajab 676, while Ibn Kathir and the Encyclopaedia of Islam fix it at 24 Rajab, 22 December 1277; he was buried in his home town, where his tomb is still honoured. Before his death he had travelled home and visited Jerusalem and Hebron, then returned and fell ill at his parents' house.
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Death of Ibn al-Nafis at Cairo and his endowment of estate and books to the Mansuri maristan, 21 Dhu al-Qa'da 687/December 1288
Ibn al-Nafis died at Cairo on 21 Dhu al-Qa'da 687 (December 1288) aged about eighty — the Shadharat margin notes 'he was eighty-four' — and endowed his house, fortune and books to the Mansuri maristan; none like him came after. Al-Suwaydan relates that on his deathbed he refused the wine prescribed him as medicine, saying he would not meet God with wine in his body, and died at dawn on Friday.
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The Aragonese capture of Djerba
One of the gravest disasters and most grievous of days for the Muslims: the fleet of Frederick, son of the king of Barcelona, seized the island of Djerba in Rajab 683 with some seventy galleys and shallops — the island then led by Muhammad ibn Samun of the Wahbi shaykhs and Ibn Umghar shaykh of the Nukkaz, the two Khariji sects — plundering its wealth and carrying off its people, eight thousand by report, having thrown the infants into wells; they built a garrisoned fort on its coast, imposed an annual tribute of a hundred thousand dinars, and held it until the late 740s.
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Egypt's famine and epidemic, 695
The year five and ninety opened, with the people of Egypt in severe dearth and extreme epidemic, so that they ate carrion. In a single day one thousand five hundred funerals were carried out, and they dug great pits and buried many people together in them.
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Louis IX's siege of Tunis (the Eighth Crusade)
Louis of France sailed at the end of Dhu al-Qa'da 668, mustered at Sardinia, and landed at Carthage with some six thousand horse and thirty thousand foot on three hundred ships — as Ibn Khaldun reports from his father from his grandfather — seven kings among them the lords of Sicily and the islands; he refused the sultan's envoy and pocketed the eighty thousand gold pieces sent to buy him off. The hosts met in mid-Muharram 669 with some five hundred dead on both sides, until the Frankish king was found dead in his camp; the peace was drawn by the qadi Ibn Zaytun over fifteen days, and Carthage was demolished, its stones carried to Tunis.
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The conquest of Acre and the expulsion of the Franks from Syria, 690 AH
In 690 — praise and thanks be to God — all that the Christians held of Syria's coast was taken and no fortress or refuge remained to them there.
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Fall of Krak des Chevaliers
Draft card for the Fall of Krak des Chevaliers in 1271, Baybars' capture of the great Hospitaller fortress by stratagem; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Fall of Montfort Castle (1271)
Draft card for the fall of Montfort Castle in 1271, Baybars's capture of the Teutonic fortress in Galilee; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Four madhhab qadis appointed in Egypt, 663
The four-madhhab judiciary instituted in Egypt in 663: when Taj al-Din Ibn Bint al-A'azz's sole Shafi'i bench stalled the casework, Jamal al-Din Aydoghdi al-Azizi proposed appointing four qadis, one per madhhab — the sultan approved and enacted it at year's end, then extended it to Damascus.
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Ghazan ibn Arghun, Ruler of the Tatars, Embraces Islam
In 694 Ghazan ibn Arghun ibn Abagha ibn Hulagu, king of the Tatars, entered Islam — the people rejoiced and Islam spread through his army.
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Ghazan's devastation of Syria, 699
In 699 the Tatar ruler Ghazan's upheaval struck Syria: more than a hundred souls, among them hadith shaykhs in Damascus and al-Jabal (meaning al-Salihiyya), died; some four hundred were killed in al-Jabal or died of cold and hunger; and some four thousand were taken captive, seventy of them descendants of Shaykh Abu Umar.
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Ghazan's Campaign against Syria, 700 AH
In 700 Ghazan crossed the Euphrates for Aleppo; Ibn Taymiyya rode the barid post to Cairo rousing jihad while Damascus emptied at the crier's 'let him who can flee save himself' — then the fear eased as Ghazan turned back, worn by hardships and snows.
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Harran's final ruin, 670
Ramadan 670 — the Tatars moved Harran's remaining people east and the city was ruined utterly; it had been emptied three years earlier when its khatib Ibn Taymiyya and others came down to Damascus.
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Ibn al-Nafis composes the Theologus Autodidactus (Fadil ibn Natiq) at Cairo, c. 670/1270
At Cairo Ibn al-Nafis composed al-Risala al-Kamiliyya fi al-sira al-nabawiyya — the Theologus Autodidactus — an intellectual tour de force in which a solitary man called Kamil on a desert island deduces by abstract reasoning that the events of the Prophet's life and the community's history, including the Mongol incursions of his own lifetime and even the physical appearance of the Muslim ruler — no doubt sultan Baybars — were the best things that could possibly have happened, ending with a naturalistic account of the Last Things; since it portrays the living Baybars (658–676 AH) the dating is placed approximately within his reign.
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Ibn al-Tiqtaqa composes al-Fakhri at Mosul, 701/1302
Between Jumada II and Shawwal 701 (February to early June 1302), during a stay in Mosul on the way to Tabriz, Ibn al-Tiqtaqa wrote his history al-Fakhri for Fakhr al-Din Isa ibn Ibrahim of Mosul: a brief Furstenspiegel followed by biographies of the caliphs down to al-Musta'sim, each followed by the biographies of that caliph's viziers, its anecdotal material skilfully chosen and its approach reflective rather than factual.
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Ibn Kathir is born in a village of the Busra al-Sham district, about 701/1302
Isma'il ibn 'Umar ibn Kathir ibn Daw', 'Imad al-Din Abu l-Fida', was born in a village of the district of Busra al-Sham; Ibn Hajar says 'born in the year 700 or shortly after', the editor of the Dhayl fixes it at 701, and al-Zirikli gives 'a village of the Busra al-Sham district'.
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The Assaf al-Nasrani affair and Ibn Taymiyya's first imprisonment, 693/1293
Ibn Taymiyya's first incursion into political life came in 693/1293 with the affair of Assaf al-Nasrani, a Christian of Suwayda accused of having insulted the Prophet. His intransigence in the affair led to his first imprisonment, at the Adhrawiyya, where he wrote his first major work, al-Sarim al-maslul 'ala shatim al-Rasul.
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Ibn Taymiyya's first lesson at the Sukkariyya, Damascus, 683/1284
Succeeding his father Abd al-Halim (d. 682/1284) in his post at the Sukkariyya madrasa, Ibn Taymiyya gave his first lesson there on 2 Muharram 683/21 March 1284; a year later, on 1 Safar 684/17 April 1285, he began teaching Qur'anic exegesis.
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Ibn Taymiyya's pilgrimage and his treatise on the rites, 691/1292
Ibn Taymiyya performed the pilgrimage to Mecca toward the end of 691/November 1292 and was back in Damascus in 692/February 1293, bringing from the journey the substance of his treatise Manasik al-hajj, in which he denounced a number of innovations that had entered the rites of the pilgrimage.
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The Hamawiyya creed and the councils that cleared it, 698/1299
In 698/1299, at the request of the people of Hama, Ibn Taymiyya wrote one of his most famous professions of faith, al-Hamawiyya al-kubra, strongly hostile to Ash'arism and to kalam. Accused by his enemies of anthropomorphism, he refused to appear before the Hanafi qadi Jalal al-Din Ahmad al-Razi, who held no jurisdiction in matters of dogma; after a private council in the house of the Shafi'i qadi Imam al-Din Umar al-Qazwini, at which the Hamawiyya was studied, his answers were judged satisfactory.
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Ibn Taymiyya begins teaching at the Hanbaliyya, 695/1296
On 17 Sha'ban 695/20 June 1296 Ibn Taymiyya began teaching at the Hanbaliyya, the oldest Hanbali madrasa of Damascus, succeeding his late teacher Zayn al-Din Ibn al-Munajja. Under al-Malik al-Mansur Lajin (696-8/1297-9) the sultan appointed him to exhort the faithful to jihad for the expedition against the kingdom of Little Armenia.
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Karak taken from al-Mas'ud Khidr, 685
685 — Karak was taken from al-Malik al-Mas'ud Khidr b. Baybars; he descended from it and went on to Egypt.
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The Karamanids occupy Konya and install Jimri, 675/1277
In 675-677/1277-78 the Karamanids of the western Taurus temporarily occupied Konya and installed there a bogus Seljuk known as Jimri — the first episode in the shift of political centres away from Konya as the Mongol protectorate settled over Seljuk Anatolia.
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Lajin's coup against al-Adil Kitbugha, 696
In 696 al-Malik al-Adil Kitbugha set out for Egypt. When he reached al-Lajjun, Husam al-Din Lajin al-Mansuri fell upon Bayhas and Baktut al-Azraq, the two wings of their master al-Adil, and killed them. Al-Adil took fright and rode out secretly with four mamluks, making for Damascus, where he entered the citadel; it did him no good, and his rule came to an end. The Egyptians submitted to Husam al-Din, and no two of them disagreed over him; he was given the title al-Malik al-Mansur. Al-Adil was placed under restraint and lodged in the citadel of Salkhad, where he was content to remain.
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Lajin murdered; al-Nasir restored, 698
In 698 Qabjaq al-Mansuri, governor of Syria, Baktamur al-Silahdar and others of Mankutimur's faction grew uneasy, fearing that Mankutimur would strike at them. News had reached them of the Tatar ruler's conversion to Islam, so they resolved to march to him from Homs. Before long word came that Sultan Lajin and his deputy Mankutimur had been killed at the hands of Karaji al-Ashrafi and those who stood with him. Karaji had fallen upon Lajin with six men while he was playing chess after the evening prayer, and the Hanafi judge Husam al-Din witnessed seven swords come down on him. His deputy was then seized and executed the next day. Al-Malik al-Nasir was proclaimed and brought from al-Karak; he appointed Salar as deputy of the realm, and then Tughji and Karaji, the two Ashrafis, were killed. Al-Nasir rode out in the Caliph's robe of honour and investiture, and al-Afram was advanced to the governorship of Damascus in Jumada I.
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Completion of the Mansuri maristan in Cairo, 683/1284
In 683/1284 the Mansuri hospital endowed by sultan al-Malik al-Mansur Qalawun was completed in Cairo. Ibn al-Nafis, to whom the headship of medicine in Egypt had come, died four years later leaving his house, fortune and books as an endowment to this maristan.
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The fall of Minorca to the lord of Barcelona
In 685 AH the lord of Barcelona swept onto the island of Minorca with twenty thousand fighting men in his fleet, approaching as if a merchant convoy and asking leave to water, which the ruler Abu Umar ibn Hakam granted; once ashore they declared war, and three times the Muslims repulsed them with losses in the thousands while the tyrant sat back — until the third day he joined the assault, the Muslims broke into the citadel's keep, contracted safe-conduct for Ibn Hakam's family and retinue who sailed to Ceuta, and the rest submitted to the enemy's rule.
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Al-Mizzi begins the quest for hadith, start of 675/1276
Al-Mizzi sought hadith on his own initiative at the start of 675/1276, aged about twenty-one, hearing extensively from the pupils of Ibn Tabarzad, Hanbal, al-Kindi, Ibn al-Kharistani and their likes, and hearing the long books — the Six Books, the Musnad, al-Mu'jam al-Kabir and the Tarikh of al-Khatib; he had moved as a child with his parents to al-Mizza near Damascus, where he received a traditional education in Qur'an and some fiqh.
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Al-Dhahabi hears Sahih al-Bukhari from al-Mizzi, 694/1294
Al-Dhahabi says of his teacher: 'I heard from him in the year 694 and took from him the Sahih of al-Bukhari and other works', al-Dhahabi then being about twenty-one; al-Mizzi's students also included al-Dhahabi, Abd al-Wahhab al-Subki and his son-in-law Ibn Kathir.
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The Conquest of Nubia and the Capture of the King of Dunqula
In 674 Baybars sent an army to Nubia and Dunqula: victorious, they captured Nubia's king and laid the jizya on Dunqula's people — the first true conquest. Al-Dhahabi lists the failed attempts: Abd Allah ibn Abi Sarh's five thousand in 31 — a truce, no conquest — then under Hisham, al-Mansur, Takin the Turk, Kafur the Ikhshid, Nasir al-Dawla ibn Hamdan, and Saladin's brother Turanshah in 568. Ibn Abd al-Zahir: 'This is the conquest — nothing you've heard of; seen by the eye, not found in isnads'.
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Al-Nuwayri's birth at Akhmim, 21 Dhu al-Qa'da 677/5 April 1279
Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Abd al-Wahhab al-Qurashi al-Taymi al-Bakri al-Nuwayri was born at Akhmim in Upper Egypt on 21 Dhu al-Qa'da 677/5 April 1279 — al-Zirikli makes his birth and upbringing at Qus. His family may have come from the small Sa'id township of al-Nuwayra though he had no direct link with it, and his father Taj al-Din Abd al-Wahhab (618-699) was born at Misr in the madrasa known as Manazil al-Izz and was remembered for his piety.
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Al-Nuwayri sent to Syria to run the diwan al-khass, Jumada II 701/January 1302
In Jumada II 701 (January 1302) al-Nuwayri travelled to Syria at the sultan's request to manage state property, the diwan al-khass — Syria had been in turmoil since Ghazan Khan's great invasion of 699. He stayed in Damascus two years and four months, travelling the country: he mentions a journey in the Ghawr and describes the Ghuta of Damascus with the same detail he gave Upper Egypt, and he befriended Sayf al-Din Balaban al-Jukandar al-Mansuri, appointed shadd of crown property in 702.
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Al-Nuwayri joins the diwan al-khass and resides at the Nasiriyya, 698/1298
For the first time after recording his own birth, al-Nuwayri mentions — under the events of 698/1298 — his recruitment to the diwan al-khass at Cairo and his residence at the Nasiriyya madrasa, inaugurated by al-Malik al-Adil Kitbugha and acquired by al-Nasir Muhammad ibn Qalawun on his return to power that year; he describes the institution at length, reproduces the text of its waqf, and openly criticises its administrator, the tawashi Shuja' al-Din 'Anbar al-Lala, accusing him of embezzlement and demanding the staff's due pay.
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Al-Nuwayri in Upper Egypt: elephant tusks at Qus, 697/1298
Details scattered through his work show that before 698/1298 al-Nuwayri spent some time in Upper Egypt and in Egypt generally: in the chapters on agriculture he speaks from personal experience of districts visited and practices observed, and in the section on animals he mentions the elephant tusks he saw at Qus in 697/1298.
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The fall of Qal'at al-Rum, 691
In Rajab 691 Sultan al-Malik al-Ashraf Khalil laid siege to Qal'at al-Rum, next to Qal'at al-Bira; its people were Christians under Tatar authority. He set up catapults and pressed the siege until it was taken after twenty-five days. Al-Shihab Mahmud said in his book al-Fath: 'The Thursday of Islam (khamis al-Islam) fell upon the people of Sunday (ahad) on a Saturday (sabt), and God blessed the community in its Saturday and its Thursday'.
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Rumi dies at Konya, 672/1273
Jalal al-Din Muhammad al-Rumi died at Konya on 17 December 1273 (672 AH) at the age of sixty-six, and his disciples afterwards formed the Mawlawiyya order. The earliest iwan containing his cenotaph is dated 672/1273-74, and the inscribed wooden cenotaph itself 674/1277, in what became the Mevlevi complex and museum.
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The Tinmel massacre — end of Banu Abd al-Mu'min
In 674 the Almohad remnant, who had sworn to Ishaq brother of Umar al-Murtada in 669, stood to their last refuge at Mount Tinmel — cradle of their da'wa, their imam's house and their Mahdi's mosque; Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Mahalla, Abu Yusuf's governor of Marrakesh, stormed the height, killed their puppet caliph and the vizier Ibn Attush in the battle, beheaded and crucified the captives at Marrakesh, scattered the Almohad caliphs' tombs and exhumed the bodies of Yusuf and his son Ya'qub al-Mansur to cut off their heads — the work of Abu Ali al-Milyani whom the sultan had enfeoffed with Aghmat; the sultan disowned the deed for its enormity yet pardoned it for the man's fealty — and the seed of Banu Abd al-Mu'min was cut off.
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The second battle of Homs, 680
The great encounter at Homs in 680 — among the martyrs Azdamur the jamadar, Sunqur al-Ashqar's Damascus na'ib ('advancing, not retreating', at fifty-odd) and the adib Shams al-Din Ibn Maktum of Baalbek.
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Siege of Algeciras
Draft card for the Siege of Algeciras of 1278–1279, Alfonso X's failed attempt on the Marinid port; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of İnegöl
Draft card for the Siege of İnegöl in 1299, Osman I's capture of the Byzantine town; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Karacahisar
Draft card for Siege of Karacahisar; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Kulaca Hisar
Draft card for the Siege of Kulaca Hisar in 1285, the first Byzantine fort said to fall to Osman I; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Margat (1285)
Draft card for the Siege of Margat in 1285, Qalawun's capture of the Hospitaller stronghold; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Montesa (1277)
Draft card for Siege of Montesa (1277); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Nedroma (1296)
Draft card for Siege of Nedroma (1296); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Rumkale (1292)
Draft card for the Siege of Rumkale in 1292, the Mamluk capture of the Armenian-held fortress; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Salses (1285)
Draft card for Siege of Salses (1285); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Tlemcen (1272)
Draft card for the Siege of Tlemcen in 1272, one of the long Marinid investments of the Zayyanid capital; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Tlemcen (1290)
Draft card for Siege of Tlemcen (1290); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Tripoli
Draft card for the Siege of Tripoli in 1271, Baibars's move on the Crusader county; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Tudela (1284)
Draft card for Siege of Tudela (1284); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Siege of Tunis (1270)
Draft card for Siege of Tunis (1270); its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Tekuder's accession as the Muslim sultan Ahmad, 681
681 — envoys of Ahmad b. Hulagu announced his settlement in the kingdom at Baghdad in his brother Abagha's place, ordering mosques built and the sacred law restored as in the caliphs' days; his embassy reached Syria and Egypt, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi among them.
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Qalawun Takes Tripoli by the Sword
In 688 the sultan took Tripoli by the sword — Frankish-held since 503, first conquered in Mu'awiya's days. 'Tripolis' in the Roman tongue means three forts joined.