and thirty thousand people.”

I heard our shaykh Ibn Nāṣir say: “News has it that Ganja was swallowed up by the earth, and the site of the town turned into black water.”

Ibn al-Athīr records the same figures in his Kāmil(1), but he dates the disaster to the year 534 AH(2).

In that same year Zengī laid siege to Damascus on several occasions(3). Ibn Ṭirād was dismissed from the vizierate and the office was given to the palace master, ustādh al-dār, Abū Naṣr ibn Jahīr. The trouble caused by the ʿayyārūn grew severe: they raided houses by torch-light and carried off garments from the bathhouses. The sultan’s vizier aided them; people rallied to their cause, and—once the sultan had given permission—they were relentlessly pursued.

That year also witnessed a major battle between Sultan Sanjar and an infidel Turk from beyond the Oxus. The Muslims were routed, and Sanjar escaped with a handful of men, reaching Balkh with only six companions. A great many soldiers were killed—some said one hundred thousand. The accursed foe then advanced with three hundred thousand horsemen and surrounded Sanjar in 536 AH.

In 539 AH(4) Zengī besieged the Franks in Edessa and captured the city, though some years later the Franks retook it.

During that same year ʿAbd al-Muʾmin seized Tlemcen and then Fes.

In 541 AH Zengī invested the fortress of Jaʿbar; three of his own mamluks leapt upon him and killed him. Masʿūd’s shihna(5) confronted al-Muqtafī in the mint, whereupon al-Muqtafī ordered the man imprisoned and his own standing grew. The Franks captured Tripoli in the Maghrib, and their power became formidable.