he gained control over Yemen, ruled with harsh tyranny and oppression, wallowed in debauchery, even split open the bellies of pregnant women, rebelled against Allah, and served as a propagandist for the Bāṭiniyyah. Allah therefore destroyed him in the early fifties of the sixth century AH (1).

After him, this very ʿAbd al-Nabī assumed power and did just as his father had done: he carried off women as captives, embraced blatant heresy, and erected over his father al-Mahdī’s grave a huge dome which he richly embellished. He hung silk draperies and golden lamps upon it, ordered the people to perform pilgrimage to it, and required everyone to bring money there. Whoever failed to visit it (2) he killed, while he forbade them from making the pilgrimage to Allah’s Sacred House. Vast sums beyond reckoning accumulated there, and he plunged into every depravity until Allah seized him at the hands of Shams al-Dawla (3), the brother of Sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. Shams al-Dawla tortured him, then executed him and seized his treasuries. Praise belongs to Allah for the downfall of this heretic. That took place around 570 AH, for Shams al-Dawla Tūrān Shāh’s expedition to Yemen and its capture occurred in 569; he arrested this criminal, hanged him, and took possession of Zabīd, Aden, and Ṣanʿāʾ (4).

ʿAbd al-Nabī’s record of domineering arrogance and high-handedness is lengthy—may Allah not show him mercy.

365 – al-Ṭāhirī, Abū al-Makārim Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad *
The venerable shaykh, Abū al-Makārim Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Khuzāʿī, al-Ḥarīmī.

He heard hadith from al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Buṣrī, Shujāʿ al-Dhuhlī, Abū al-ʿIzz ibn al-Mukhtār, and several others.