Say to the vizier, scion of glory and generosity—
Before whom the whole world stands at attention—

Whose two hands together pour forth favour and chastisement,
Directed by the just authority of sword and pen;

Who, whenever he resolves to carry out his designs,
Shows what destiny itself can do among the nations;

You are more renowned for guarding covenants
And for ruling by noble deeds than fire upon a hill-top.

The vizier Abū al-Faraj died in the month of Dhu al-Qaʿda in 370 AH, at the age of sixty-two.

– al-Shīrāzī, Abū al-Faḍl (repeated* 156)

The grand vizier Abū al-Faḍl became enraged with the people of Baghdad when they killed Jandār, and he ordered the markets to be set ablaze. The fire spread from the coppersmiths’ quarter to the fishmongers’, killing many men, women, and children, and the wealth of the city was lost. Among the Houses of God consumed by the blaze were thirty-three mosques, together with six hundred houses and shops. Prayers against him multiplied, and they cursed him to his face. ʿIzz al-Dawla then seized him, banished him to Kūfah, and had him made to drink samm al-dharāriḥ (1), a deadly poison; thus he perished in the year sixty-odd and three hundred AH.

218 – al-Bakkāʾī, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh

The imam, ḥadīth scholar, trustworthy transmitter, and chief authority of Kūfah, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Sarī al-Bakkāʾī al-Kūfī.