come back to you to pay respects; I have come only to praise Allah for imprisoning you within your own skin.’

Al-Mughīra ibn Muḥammad al-Muhallabī said, ‘He and his son Muḥammad were both struck by misfortune: the son died first, then the father in Muḥarram, 240 AH, and he was buried at his residence in Baghdad.’

I say: al-Mutawakkil confiscated his wealth, seizing sixteen million dirhams and leaving him impoverished. He then appointed Yaḥyā ibn Aktham to the judiciary, dismissed him two years later, and took from him one hundred thousand dinars and four thousand jarīb he owned in Basra.

Such is this world—one trial after another.

72 – Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Muṣʿab al-Khuzaʿī*

Governor of Baghdad.
He ruled for about thirty years, and it was under his authority—by order of al-Maʾmūn—that scholars were put to the test on the issue of the Quran’s creation.
A capable administrator: firm, generous, widely praised, endowed with virtue, learning, and cunning.
He died in 235 AH, and after him the governorship of Baghdad passed to his son Muḥammad.

73 – al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl, Abū Muḥammad**

The consummate vizier, Abū Muḥammad; father-in-law of al-Maʾmūn and brother of the “two-portfolio” vizier al-Faḍl ibn Sahl. They came from a distinguished Magian family—until their father Sahl embraced Islam.