and his companions, all but that jurist. Some time later, however, a robe of honor was placed upon the jurist as well; his horse was presented to him with a gilded saddle, and he was told, “The Caliph never took your mount—it was only a street-sweeper who seized it.” At these words he fainted.

I remarked: There is no real substance behind such a performance; any court attendant or soothsayer could achieve things many times greater than this. (1)

Al-Muwaffaq ʿAbd al-Laṭīf said: In the middle of his rule al-Nāṣir occupied himself with the transmission of hadith. He appointed deputies to narrate on his behalf, allotted them stipends, and issued certificates of authorization (ijazah) to kings and scholars. He compiled a booklet of seventy hadiths that, delivered by al-Suhrawardī, reached Aleppo, where al-Ẓāhir heard it together with the leading figures of state and their younger courtiers. What drew him to hadith was an incident in which the Abbasid Chief Qadi was accused of forgery; he and three witnesses were summoned. The judge disciplined the qadi by tearing up his turban, and the three witnesses were paraded through the grain market on camels. One of them died that very night, the second adopted the dress of rogues, and the third disappeared—he is the traditionist al-Bandanījī, our companion. In straitened circumstances he began selling his books and found among the wastepaper an ijazah for al-Nāṣir from the shaykhs of Baghdad. He presented it to the Caliph; a robe of honor was conferred on him and he was given one hundred dinars, after which he was appointed al-Nāṣir’s agent for issuing ijazah and supervising recitations. (2)

I add: Among those who transmit from al-Nāṣir by ijazah are ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Sukaynah, Ibn al-Akhdar, the Chief Qadi Ibn al-Dāmaghānī, the Crown Prince, al-Malik al-ʿĀdil and his sons, and our two shaykhs—Maḥmūd al-Zanjānī and al-Miqdād al-Qaysī.