- Fakhr al-Mulk Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Khalf *
The senior vizier, Abū Ghālib Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Khalf ibn al-Ṣayrafī.
A work entitled Kitāb al-Fakhri on al-jabr wa al-muqābala (algebra) (1) was compiled in his name.
He was a highly esteemed statesman—open-handed, commended, and counted among the notable figures of his era. His father had been a money-changer in the diwān of Wāsiṭ, while Abū Ghālib himself, from his youth, pursued noble qualities and virtues; people nicknamed him “the junior vizier.” He was then assigned various posts, and his fortunes rose until he assumed the administration of the diwān of Wāsiṭ. Later he became vizier and acted as deputy for the ruler Bahāʾ al-Dawla (2) in Fars, capturing several fortresses. He next governed Iraq after ʿAmīd al-Juyūsh (3). He exercised a measure of justice, reinstated the ritual chest-beating on the day of ʿĀshūrāʾ, which sparked unrest, and poets (4) lauded him in verse. He remained in authority for six years, after which he was seized at Ahwāz and killed in Rabīʿ al-Awwal, 407 AH. The victors took from him jewels, rare treasures, one million dinars, and other valuables, and he was buried in his clothes (5).