Thursday, the sixteenth of Dhu al-Qaʿdah. (1)

The news of his assassination reached Baghdad on the ninth day thereafter; wailing and weeping filled the city, and public mourning was held.

Ṣadaqah ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥaddād said: “He had already performed the ẓuhr prayer and, while fasting, was reading from a muṣḥaf when a group armed with daggers slipped in through the side of the tent and killed him. A cry arose and a number of his attendants were slain defending him, among them Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sukaynah and Ibn al-Khazrī. The assassins fled in disorder, but they were seized, put to death, and then burned. One of their hands protruded from the fire, clenched and unscathed; when it was pried open, it was found to contain a few hairs from his—Allah’s blessings be upon him—beard. Sultan Masʿūd took the hairs, placed them in a gold amulet, and sat to receive condolences. A servant brought the blood-stained muṣḥaf to the sultan, and the people of Marāgha came out in sackcloth with ashes on their faces. His caliphate had lasted seventeen years and six months. (2)

Qutham ibn Ṭalḥah said: “He was fair-haired, fragrant, and hazel-eyed, with little hair on his cheeks.” Among his male issue he left Manṣūr al-Rāshid bi’Llāh, Aḥmad, ʿAbd Allāh, and Isḥāq—who had predeceased him—together with two daughters. His viziers were Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn, Abū ʿAlī ibn Ṣadaqah, ʿAlī ibn Ṭirād, and Anūsharwān, while his chief judges were ʿAlī ibn al-Dāmghānī and ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Zaynabī.