The Introduction summarizes the dynastic, political and personal background of the chronicler, Abu'l-Fida. The text (superseding the partial French translation in Recueil des historiens des croisades, 1872) recounts the events of his own lifetime from his participation on the final campaigns against the Crusaders in 1285-91 to two years before his death, when he was ruling Hamah as an autonomous sultan under Mamluk overlordship. He says much of the affairs of Syria, and the campaigns in which he took part the growth of his unusually friendly relations with the autocratic Mamluk Sultan al-Nasir Muhammad, and developments in the Hijaz.