—Aḥmad ibn Buwayh ibn Fannā Khusraw al-Daylamī.

The caliph al-Ṭāʾiʿ li-Allāh married his daughter Shahnāz (1) for a bride-price of one hundred thousand dinars.

He was fearsomely strong: he would seize a bull by its horns and throw it to the ground. Yet he was also prodigal and wasteful.

He assumed the sultanate after his father, but his cousin ʿAḍud al-Dawla rebelled against him, and wars broke out between them. During the fighting an exquisitely handsome slave of ʿIzz al-Dawla was taken captive; the ruler became infatuated, lost his reason, stopped eating, wept, and brought disgrace upon himself. He wrote to ʿAḍud al-Dawla in a tone of abject submission, offering as the slave’s ransom two sticks of aloeswood, one of which alone was worth one hundred thousand dinars, saying, “Return him and I will relinquish the throne.” So ʿAḍud al-Dawla sent the captive back.

It was said that his monthly allowance of wax for candles amounted to several qintars (2).

He and ʿAḍud al-Dawla met in battle in Shawwāl 367 AH; he was killed on the field, whereupon ʿAḍud al-Dawla regretted it and wept when the head was brought to him.

He lived thirty-six years.

The fortunes of Islam declined under the Buwayhid dynasty and the Rāfiḍī ʿUbaydid line: they abandoned jihad, the Christian Romans grew bold, seized towns, and wrought killing and captivity.