and al-Majd, the two sons of Jahbal.

I say: They acted properly and were right in what they did.

Al-Muwaffaq Yaʿīsh the grammarian (1) related: When the people began to censure him, his pupil said to him, “You claim that prophethood can be acquired, so let us withdraw.”

He answered, “Only after we have eaten the melons of Aleppo, for I have a touch of tuberculosis.” He then went out to a village where there were melons, and we stayed there for a few days. One day he went to a pit from which ṭurāb al-raʾs (a kind of fuller’s earth) was dug, excavated until he came upon some pebbles, smeared them with oil he had brought, wrapped them in cotton, and carried them at his waist for several days. In the end the whole lot turned into red ruby. He sold part of it and gave gifts to his companions; when he was killed, some of it was still with him.

I say: He was foolish, impetuous, and morally lax.

Sayf al-Āmidī (2) reports that he once said, “I must one day rule the world.”

I asked him, “How do you figure that?”

He replied, “I saw (3) in a dream as though I had drunk up the water of the sea.”

I said, “Perhaps it signifies the fame of your learning.”

Yet he never abandoned the notion in his mind. I found him vast in knowledge but meager in sense, and he left several writings.

I say: He was killed in the early part of 587 AH.

103 – The lord of Rūm, Qilij Arslan ibn Masʿūd the Seljuq *

The sultan ʿIzz al-Dīn Qilij Arslan, son of Sultan Masʿūd ibn Qilij Arslan ibn