سقوط القاضي الرفيعي سنة 641هـ

In 641 AH the judge al-Rafii fell after a rift developed between him and the vizier, as Ibn al-Imad relates in Shadharat al-Dhahab. ¹

His assistants were arrested, and their chief, Ibn al-Rawwas, was imprisoned, tortured and had his property confiscated; Ibn al-Rawwas died under the punishment. al-Rafii was then removed from his house and held at al-Muqaddamiyya. He was later moved at night to a cave in the outskirts of the Biqa, and news of him ended. It was said that he was strangled, and it was said that he was thrown from a height into a chasm. ¹

Ibn al-Imad attributes to al-Rafii corruption of belief, mockery of the matters of the law, going to Friday prayer drunk, preparing false witnesses, and taking bribes and the property of orphans and endowments. These are the descriptions of the author alone, and he offers no evidence for them at this point. ¹

He is said to have been carried to Baalbek on a mule without a saddle and stopped at the top of the citadel. He asked to pray two units of prayer; he prayed and prolonged it, and an executioner named Dawud kicked him so that he fell. The vizier al-Amin remained until 648 AH, when he was hanged in Egypt, and his stored wealth was seized, amounting to three million dinars. ¹