ABSTRACT
This text was written by Ibn 'Abd al-Ẓāhir's nephew. The sections dealing with the Crusaders or Qalāwūn's life have been selected for the translation. Everyone agreed that he was the most handsome, perfect, magnificent and beautiful of all the imported slaves to arrive. The purchasers crowded around him when he arrived, at the age of 14, and expended thousands in gold upon him, considering him to be far beyond the hundreds. When the regime of al-Malik al-Ẓāhir Rukn al-Dīn Baybars al-Ṣāliḥī came, he took him with his two hands, and relied upon him for the stability of his dominion, placing him as the foremost adviser, and as his right-hand man (literally, "his noun's predicate"), and depended upon him in a way no king had with an emir, or any sultan with an adviser. As for Marqab, it belonged to the Hospitallers, and its rule was under the control of their commander in Acre, who was Brother William [=John of Montferrat].
