son of al-Mustanjid bi-Llāh Yūsuf, son of al-Muqtafi Muḥammad, son of al-Mustazhir bi-Llāh Aḥmad, son of al-Muqtadī—the Hāshimite, the ʿAbbāsid, the Baghdadi.

He was born on the tenth of Rajab in the year 553 AH.

He was given the oath of allegiance at the beginning of Dhū al-Qaʿdah, 575 AH. He was fair-skinned, of medium height, with a Turkish cast to his face—handsome-eyed, with a radiant forehead, an aquiline nose, slight cheeks, blond (1), and fine facial hair. The inscription on his signet ring read: “My hope from Allah is His pardon.”

Among those who granted him ijāzahs were Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Yūsufī, ʿAlī ibn ʿAsākir al-Baṭāʾiḥī, Shuhda the Scribe, and others.

He, in turn, conferred ijāzahs upon a number of leading scholars and notables; they narrated from him in his own days, competing for that distinction and vaunting it—though on illusory grounds.

No one who assumed the caliphate enjoyed a longer reign than he did; yet the Fatimid ruler of Egypt al-Mustanṣir governed for sixty years, and in al-Andalus the Marwānid Nāṣir likewise ruled for fifty years.

His father al-Mustaḍīʾ had become apprehensive of him, so he imprisoned him and turned his favor toward his brother Abū—