sherifs, to acknowledge his authority. His
diplomatic relations were more extensive than those of any previous
sultan, and included Bulgarian, Indian, and Abyssinian potentates, as
well as the pope, the king of Aragon and the king of France. He appears
to have done his utmost to protect his Christian subjects, incurring
thereby the reproaches of the more fanatical Moslems, especially in the
year 1320 when owing to incendiarism in Cairo there was danger of a
general massacre of the Christian population. His internal
administration was marked by gross extravagance, which led to his
viziers being forced to practise violent extortion for which they
afterwards suffered. He paid considerable attention to sheep-breeding
and agriculture, and by a canal which he had dug from Fuah to Alexandria
not only assisted commerce but brought 100,000 feddans under
cultivation. His taste for building and street improvement led to the
beautifying of Cairo, and his example was followed by the governors of
other great cities in the empire, notably Aleppo and Damascus. He paid
exceptionally high prices for Mamelukes, many of whom were sold by their
Mongol parents to his agents, and accustomed them to greater luxury than
was usual under his predecessors. In 1315 he instituted a survey of
Egypt, and of the twenty-four parts into which it was divided ten were
assigned to the sultan and fourteen to the amirs and the army. He took
occasion to abolish a variety of vexatious imposts, and the new budget
fell less heavily on the Christians than the old. Among the literary
ornaments of his reign was the historian and geographer Isma'il Abulfeda
(q.v.), to whom Malik al-Nasir restored the government of Hamath, which
had belonged to his ancestors, and even gave the title sultan. He died
on the 7th of June 1341. The son, _Abu Bakr_, to whom he had left the
throne, was able to maintain himself only a few months on it, being
compelled to abdicate on the 4th of August 1341 in favour of his infant
brother _Kuchuk_; the revolution was brought about by Kausun, a powerful
Mameluke of the preceding monarch. This person's authority was, however,
soon overthrown by a party formed by the Syrian prefects, and on the
11th of January _Malik al-Nasir Ahmad_, an elder son of the former
sultan of the same title, was installed in his place, though he did not
actually arrive in Cairo till the 6th of November, being unwilling to
leave Kerak, where he had been living in retiremen