“…How can that be when the crown-prince Yūsuf is still alive?”

She answered, “Leave him to me.” She armed a number of her slave-girls with knives, ready for them to pounce on him. One of Yūsuf’s young pages noticed the commotion and saw that ʿAlī and his mother were each holding a sword; frightened, he rushed to his master. At the same time she sent word to Yūsuf: “Come at once—the Commander of the Faithful is dying.”

Yūsuf summoned the chamberlain, donned a coat of mail, drew his sword, and set out with a band of attendants and servants. As he passed the slave-girls he struck one of them with his sword and wounded her; the rest scattered in panic. He then seized his brother and their mother and confined them, and he put the slave-girls to death, drowning or killing them, thereby securing control.

His mother was a Georgian woman named Ṭāwūs (1).

Al-Dubaythī said: He composed poetry, and the inscription on his signet-ring read, “Whoever loves himself will act on her behalf.”

Ibn al-Najjār relates that Ibn Ṣafiyyah said: Al-Muqtafī once saw his son Yūsuf during a spell of intense heat and asked, “What is that in your mouth?” He replied, “A ring that Yazdan engraved with the names of the Twelve; it quenches thirst.” Al-Muqtafī said, “Woe to you (2)! Yazdan wants to turn you into a Rāfiḍī. The leader of the Twelve is al-Ḥusayn—may Allah be pleased with him—and he died of thirst!”

Al-Mustanjid versified:
“ She reproached me for my grey hairs—yet they are dignity;
Would that she had blamed me for what is truly shameful!
If the locks upon my head have turned white,
The nights themselves are beautified by their moons.” (3)

A group of transmitters informed me on the authority of Ibn al-Jawzī: the vizier Ibn Hubayra told me, and al-Mustanjid himself told me, saying, “I saw the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—in a dream fifteen years ago, and he said:”