—another sprang at him and struck him (1) in the side; he grabbed him, flung him from the mule to the ground, and wounded him in several places. The attendants came back; two of them rushed in and tried to carry the assailant off, but he turned on them. The whole company scattered, leaving the vizier alone. The killer wheeled around, dragged him along, and the vizier pleaded and begged for mercy, yet he did not desist until he cut his throat, all the while proclaiming the takbīr and shouting, “I am a Muslim, a monotheist.” He and the other three were then put to death, while the vizier was carried to the house of his brother al-Naṣīr and later buried. This happened on the last day of Ṣafar in the year 516 AH (2).
It was also said that the man who killed him was a slave who had belonged to al-Muʾayyad al-Ṭughrāʾī (3), vizier to Sultan Masʿūd; for al-Sumayramī had unjustly executed his master and branded him as holding corrupt beliefs (4). Thus, every killer is himself killed.
253 – Ibn al-Qaṭṭāʿ, Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī*
The erudite scholar and leading authority on Arabic, Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī al-Saʿdī,
(1) Tarikh al-Islam reads: “and struck him.”
(2) Ibn Kathir reports in al-Bidaya, 12/191: “His womenfolk returned, after having gone before him, riding on litters of gold with their faces unveiled. Allah replaced their former honour with humiliation, their security with fear, their rejoicing with grief, and their happiness with a fitting requital. Their situation recalls Abu al-Atahiya’s verses on Khayruzan and her maid-servants when al-Mahdi died:
They departed in brocade, yet hair-shirts cloaked them;
Every valley among mankind has its day of upheaval.
Die you shall, though you were to live the span of Noah;
So weep for yourself, if you must needs weep.”
(3) The man intended is the ‘amid Fakhr al-Kuttab Abu Ismail al-Husayn b. Ali b. Muhammad b. Abd al-Samad, entitled Muayyad al-Din al-Isbahani, killed in 514 AH; his biography will appear under no. 262.
(4) See Wafayat al-Ayan, 2/190, and Mirat al-Zaman, 8/66.
(*) Further sources: Muʿjam al-Udabaʾ, 12/279-283; Inbah al-Ruwat, 2/236; Wafayat al-Ayan, 3/322-324; al-Mukhtasar fi Akhbar al-Bashar, 2/247; Tarikh al-Islam, 4/220/1; al-Ibar, 4/35; Tammat al-Mukhtasar, 2/50; al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat, fol. 12/18; Mirat al-Jinan.