—he was drunk at the time—so he charged them; but they had already set an ambush and killed him in Muḥarram of the year 427 AH (1).

When the Berbers, together with al-Qāsim ibn Ḥammūd, were routed from Córdoba, the townspeople agreed to restore authority to the Umayyad house. They chose ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (2) ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh, the brother (3) of al-Mahdī (4), and gave him the pledge of allegiance in Ramaḍān of 414 AH, bestowing upon him the honorific al-Mustaẓhar bi-llāh. He was twenty-two years old.

His kinsman Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān then rose against him with a band of lowborn rabble; they murdered al-Mustaẓhar two months later. Ibn Hazm the ẓāhirī had served as his vizier and later praised al-Mustaẓhar, saying: “He was the epitome of refinement, eloquence, and intelligence—may Allah have mercy on him.”

Power now passed to Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Nāṣir, an Umayyad, upon whom they conferred the title al-Mustakfī bi-llāh (5). He received the oath of allegiance at the age of forty-eight, ruled for six months, and proved to be a foolish man of scant intellect. His vizier was Aḥmad ibn Khālid the Weaver. The vizier was subsequently slain, the caliph deposed, and he himself imprisoned for three days without food. Thereafter they banished him to al-Maʿthar; he made for the frontier districts and disappeared from view.

Some say he was poisoned by means of a chicken and died, whereupon authority returned once more to al-Muʿtalī.

When al-Muʿtalī was absent, the people of Córdoba unanimously resolved to hand power back to the Umayyads, and they rose