son of the sultan Malikshah ibn Alp Arslan the Seljuq, who was also styled Bahāʾ al-Dawla.

He inherited the throne after his father, while his brother, the sultan Sanjar, governed Khurasan on his behalf. Barkiyāruq was a young man—noble-spirited, courageous, and fond of amusement—with both generosity and forbearance, yet addicted to wine. He assumed the sultanate when he was only thirteen, and his reign of thirteen years passed in hardship and wars between him and his brother Muḥammad; their full story is recorded in the chronicles.

He died in Burūjird in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 498 AH, succumbing to tuberculosis and hemorrhoids. By the end of his rule his authority had become firmly established and his prestige immense. When death approached, and with the counsel of the emirs, he designated his son Malikshah as his successor; they conferred the allegiance upon the boy, who was five years old.

117 – al-Bandanījī Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Hibat-Allāh ibn Thābit *
The eminent scholar and mufti, Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Hibat-Allāh ibn Thābit al-Shāfiʿī, who was blind, a disciple of Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī. He taught while his own shaykh was still alive, and later took up residence near the Sacred Precinct.