82 – ʿThe Lord of India’ Abū al-Muẓaffar Ibrāhīm ibn Masʿūd ibn Maḥmūd ibn Subuktekīn
The great sultan, Abū al-Muẓaffar Ibrāhīm, son of Sultan Masʿūd, son of the Sultan—conqueror of India and eradicator of idolatry (1) —Maḥmūd ibn Subuktekīn, ruler of Ghazna.
Ibrāhīm was a just king, fair and politically astute, courageous, bold, and generous, beloved by his subjects. His dominions were vast (2). He ruled for forty years and lived to the age of seventy.
He died in 492 AH.
83 – al-ʿAbdī, Abū Yaʿlā Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan
The shaykh, jurist, and eminent scholar—the leading authority of the Mālikīs—Abū Yaʿlā Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Zakariyyā al-ʿAbdī, of Basra, a Mālikī, known as Ibn al-Ṣawwāf. He lived in al-Qasamīl, a district of Basra (3).
(*) Al-Muntazam, 9/109–110; Al-Kamil, 10/5–6, 167 (which notes his death in 481 AH); Duwal al-Islam, 2/10; Al-Ibar, 3/225; Tatimmat al-Mukhtasar, 2/9; Uyoon al-Tawarikh, 13/89–90; Al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 12/157; Al-Nujum al-Zahira, 5/164.
(1) Al-budd: a shrine that contains idols and images; some say the word designates the idol itself. It is a Persian loanword. Here it refers to the idol Somnath that was worshipped in India when Sultan Mahmud invaded the region in 416 AH. He smashed the idol, seized its cash and jewels, and set a fragment of it as the threshold of the Ghazna mosque. The author relates this campaign at length in volume 17 under the biography of Sultan Mahmud, no. 319; see there.
(2) He used to say—as recorded in Al-Kamil, 10/167—“Had I been in Abu Masud’s place after the death of my grandfather Mahmud, the bonds of our kingdom would never have been broken. But I am now unable to regain what has been taken, for it lies in the hands of kings whose realms are vast and whose armies are mighty.”
(* *) Tartib al-Madarik, 4/791; Al-Muntazam, 9/103; Al-Ibar, 3/328; Al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 12/154; Al-Dibaj al-Mudhahhab, 1/175; Shadharat al-Dhahab, 3/394; Shajarat al-Nur al-Zakiyya, 116.
(3) Yaqut states: Qusamil—with an initial fat-ha—is a tribe from Yemen belonging to the Azd; they are called the Qusamila, and they have …