Obituaries of 824:
Amir Sayf al-Dīn Jaqmaq b. ʿAbd Allāh al-ʾArghūn Shāwī the dawādār, then nāʾib of Damascus, was killed after having been tortured severely to exact money, in the night of Tuesday 26/08, after the return of amir Ṭaṭar from Aleppo. Jaqmaq was originally a Circassian, taken from his land with his mother, when he was three years old. He was brought to Egypt, and both were bought by one of the amirs there. They stayed with him during a short period, and when he was arrested, another amir bought them, then they passed from his possession to the possession of amir ʾAlṭunbughā al-Raḥabī, then to amir Qardam al-Ḥasanī, the raʾs nawbat al-nuwab. He gave the mother to his wife and her son, Jaqmaq, to his son, our friend al-ʿAlāʾī ʿAlī b. Qardam. They stayed with them until amir Qardam died. A short time after him Jaqmaq passed to the possession of amir ʾArghūn Shāh al-Ẓāhirī, the ʾamīr majlis, who manumitted him and took him into his service, until he was killed in 802. After him Jaqmaq entered in the service of al-Malik al-Muʾayyad Shaykh, who was one of the amirs then, and became his raʾs nawbat al-jamdārīya, and then his dawādār thānī, until al-Malik al-Muʾayyad Shaykh became sultan and made him amir of 10 and sent him on a mission to amir Nawrūz al-Ḥāfiẓī. Nawrūz arrested him and imprisoned him until al-Muʾayyad defeated Nawrūz and released Jaqmaq from the citadel of Damascus. He made him amir of 40 and appointed him as dawādār al-thānī. Then he transferred him to the function of dawādār kabīr, after a few years, because of the transfer of ʾĀqbāy al-Muʾayyadī to the function of nāʾib of Aleppo. He performed the office of dawādār with great honour and enjoyed good fortune, until he was appointed as nāʾib of Damascus, after the dismissal of amir Tanbak Miyiq in the year 822. He stayed in Damascus until al-Malik al-Muʾayyad died, then he rebelled against amir Ṭaṭar and made an alliance with ʾamīr kabīr ʾAlṭunbughā al-Qurmushī. Then there was a disagreement between them, and they fought each other. Jaqmaq fled and went to Ṣarkhad. He stayed there until Ṭaṭar invited him to come to Damascus with an ʾamān, and he arrested him and killed him. He was buried in his madrasa that he built in Damascus. He was an amir who knew the affairs of his world, ignorant of science, learning and the arts of furūsīya. He knew Arabic well. He was crafty, diabolical, guileful, devoted to pleasure and self-indulgent, at the same time quick-tempered and irascible, stupid and insolent. I saw him more than once, he was somewhat short and fat, with a rounded black beard. He was eloquent in the way of the Egyptian populace, not in that of the fuqahāʾ.