Sibt ibn al-Jawzi's session in the Damascus mosque and march to Nablus, 607 AH

A preaching session held by Sibt ibn al-Jawzi in the Damascus mosque calling for the campaign against the Franks, and his march with volunteers to Nablus, told by himself among the events of 607 AH in Mir'at al-zaman under "the author said". ¹

He says he sat in the Damascus mosque on Saturday 5 Rabi' I; the people stretched from the gate of the shrine of Zayn al-Abidin to the gate of the Natifaniyyin and the gate of the Hours, with more standing in the courtyard, until the mosque was full and the crowd was estimated at thirty thousand, a day "the like of which was never seen in Damascus". ¹ Much hair had been brought to him, and he had read the story of Abu Qudama al-Shami and the woman who cut off her hair and sent it to him, saying: make it a hobble for your horse in the path of God; so from the hair he had he made hobbles for the fighters' horses, and when he mounted the pulpit he had them brought in on men's shoulders, three hundred hobbles; the people cried out and cut off their own hair likewise. ¹ Al-Mubariz Ibrahim al-Mu'tamad, governor of Damascus, was present; when the preacher came down he walked with him to the Natifaniyyin gate, held his stirrup and helped him mount, and they went out by the Bab al-Faraj to the prayer-ground. ¹

The next day they went to al-Kiswa with a great crowd, some three hundred armed men from the village of Zamalka alone, "all of them going out for God's reward", then to the Afiq pass and along the highway to Nablus, where al-Malik al-Mu'azzam Isa came out to meet them. Sibt ibn al-Jawzi preached in the mosque of Nablus; the hair was brought, and al-Mu'azzam took it, laid it on his face and wept; Sibt says he had not met him before that day. ² They then went into Frankish territory, laid waste, demolished, cut down trees and took captives, the Franks not daring to come out of Acre, and returned to Mount Tabor overlooking Nazareth. ²

On the mountain al-Mu'azzam said: I want to build a fortress on it; he summoned his brother al-Malik al-Ashraf and the armies of the east and of Aleppo and began building; the troops camped below from Dhu al-Hijja of that year into 608 until its wall was complete; the Franks, alarmed, sent to al-Adil, who made peace with them, and al-Mu'azzam went on building on Tabor until shortly before al-Adil's death. ²

Sibt ibn al-Jawzi places the episode among the events of 607 AH, on Saturday 5 Rabi' I. ¹ Ibn al-Imad in Shadharat al-dhahab says he sat in the Damascus mosque in 606, urging jihad, and that women cut their hair for him. ³ In Sibt's own account the hair "had been gathered with him", without naming women in this passage, and he cites the woman in the story of Abu Qudama al-Shami as the model he followed. ¹