Usually, there are four ḥājibs in Aleppo, the first of them being a muqaddam ʾalf as the ḥājib al-ḥujjāb, called in the dīwān al-ʾinshāʾ at the august gates, in the correspondence and the like, ʾamīr ḥājib bi-Ḥalab. He is the second in rank after the nāʾib as-salṭana, no one enters the dār an-niyāba while riding except for the nāʾib and he. He is the nāʾib al-ghayba when the nāʾib as-salṭana leaves for a mission or on hunting or the like. The sultanic prescripts (marsūms) for the arrest of the nāʾib as-salṭana when the sultan wants to arrest him come to him, and he occupies himself with the situation of the city until a nāʾib appears in it. And the three remaining [ḥājibs] are either three amirs of forty, or two amirs of forty and one of ten or the like. The appointment of the ḥājib al-ḥujjāb and of the ḥājib al-thānī comes from the august sultanic gates, without taqlīd nor marsūm, and the others are appointed by the nāʾib Ḥalab, and the latter are two, one for the rightwing and one for the leftwing. The one for the righwing generally is an amir of ten, sometimes of five, and the one of the leftwing is an soldier from the ḥalqa, and their appointment by the nāʾib is done for each of them by a tawqīʿ karīm.