In 571 AH he remained there so that the turmoil that had broken out among the Berbers might subside. Then, in 575 AH, he set out until he reached the city of Gafsa, besieged it, and arrested Ibn al-Rand.
He concluded a truce (1) with the ruler of Sicily, on condition that each year he remit a levy raised from the Franks (2). The Sicilian sent Abū Yaʿqūb a collection of gifts, among them an exceedingly rare ruby as round as a horse’s hoof; with it they adorned the ʿUthmānī codex (3).
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr Ibn al-Jadd relates: “We were in his company when he asked us, ‘How long was the Prophet ﷺ under the effect of sorcery?’ We were uncertain (4), so he said, ‘He remained so for a full month; this is authentically established (5).’ ”
He was a jurist, conversant with the legal schools. He would say, “The opinion of So-and-so is correct, and its proof from the Book and the Sunnah is such-and-such.”
ʿAbd al-Wāḥid (6) said: “When he prepared to campaign against the Byzantines, he instructed the scholars to gather hadiths on jihad to be dictated to the troops, and he himself would dictate them, as would the senior …”
(1) The manuscript reads “wahan,” which is almost certainly a scribal slip. The episode of his truce with the king of Sicily is related in al-Mujib, the source from which al-Dhahabi quotes (p. 325 ff.).
(2) At that period Sicily was under Norman rule.
(3) Abd al-Wahid states: “The Quran codex we mentioned reached them from the copies prepared under Uthman—may Allah be pleased with him—kept in the Umayyad treasury; they would carry it before them wherever they travelled, on a red she-camel” (al-Mujib, 326).
(4) So in the manuscript. The correct reading is fa-shakkakna ("we doubted"), for, as related in Tarikh al-Islam, they could not determine the exact interval when questioned.
(5) Shuayb remarks: In the Musnad 6/63, through the isnad of Ibrahim b. Khalid → Maʿmar → Hisham → his father → Aisha, she said: “The Prophet ﷺ remained for six months imagining that he was coming (to his wives) but he would not. Then two angels came; one sat at his head and the other at his feet. One asked, ‘What is wrong with him?’ The other replied, ‘He is bewitched.’ ‘Who bewitched him?’ ‘Labid b. al-Asam…’.” The chain meets the criteria of the two Shaykhs except for Ibrahim b. Khalid al-Sanani, whom they did not transmit from; nonetheless he is reliable, graded trustworthy by Ibn Maʿin, Ahmad, al-Darqutni and others.
(6) Al-Mujib, p. 328.