The Egyptians intercepted this same year a letter from Hulagu to Mogith, Prince of Karak; this seemed an answer to some communication, from which it might be inferred that the prince had been asking the Mongols to take Egypt, and also Syria to Gaza. Beibars set out straightway for Gaza, and feigning great friendship for Mogith invited him to Gaza. Mogith made the visit, but the moment he entered the camp he was seized. Beibars next summoned the chief judge of Damascus, the princes, feudatories, commanders and notable persons, also European ambassadors, and had Hulagu’s letters to Mogith read in their presence. He declared thereupon that this letter was the cause of the prince’s detention. After that he seized Karak and returned to Cairo where he took Mogith’s life without waiting. Hulagu was interested greatly during the last year of his rule in building a palace at Alatag, and in finishing the observatory at Meraga. Though not a scholar himself he liked to converse with learned men, especially astronomers and alchemists, but beyond all the latter, who had known how to captivate his fancy, and on whom he expended large sums of money. Administration had now, (1264), become greatly important. Hulagu’s rule extended from the Oxus to Syria and the Byzantine Empire. He gave his eldest son, Abaka, Mazanderan, Irak and Khorassan; to Yshmut his third son, Azerbaidjan and Arran; to Tudan, one of his commanders, Diarbekr and Diarrabiat up to the Euphrates; Rūm he gave to Moyin ud din Pervane; to the Melik Sadr ud din, the province of Tebriz, and Fars to an emir, Ikiatu. According to Rashid he gave Kerman to Turkan Khatun, but this is questioned by some historians. In 1263 he had put to death his vizir Seïf ud din Bitikdji while on the march from Shemaki to Derbend, and put in his place Shems ud din Juveini, whose brother, Alai ud din, Ata ul Mulk, was made governor of Bagdad. This same year Hulagu condemned to death Zein ud din Muyyed Suleiman, son of the emir El Akarbani, better known as El Hafizzi, a name which he had taken from his former master, Prince Hafizzi. He was accused of having turned to his own profit a part of the income from the province of Damascus. Hulagu reproached him for his perfidy. “Thou hast betrayed me,” said he, “thou didst betray also Prince Nassir, and before him Prince Hafizzi, and earlier than all the Baalbek prince.” The death sentence which struck down El Hafizzi included his family, his brothers, his relatives and clients, fifty persons in all. Only two escaped, one was his son, and the other his nephew.