—a deficit in the purchase price of an estate—so he sent me twenty thousand.

On another occasion he sat for entertainment and noticed, on one of the carpets, a circular design depicting a mounted horseman wearing a crown, surrounded by a Persian inscription (1). He asked for someone who could read it; a man was brought, examined it, and, finding the words …, he frowned, fell silent, and said, “It means nothing.” Al-Muntaṣir pressed him, whereupon he said, “It reads: ‘I am Shīrūya son of Khosrow son of Hormizd. I killed my father, and I enjoyed the kingdom for only six months.’”

Al-Muntaṣir’s face changed and he rose (2).

Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid relates: Al-Muntaṣir said to me, “O Jaʿfar, my end has been hastened; I can no longer hear with one ear (3), nor see with one eye.”

I say: Few events marked his reign, owing to its brevity. He lived twenty-six years—may Allah pardon him.

He died on the fifth of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir in the year 248 AH; his caliphate therefore lasted six months and some days.

He had already dispatched Waṣīf, with an army, to the Byzantine frontier. Waṣīf, Bugha, and Ibn al-Khaṣīb had pressed him to depose his brothers, fearing that al-Muʿtazz might assume the caliphate and wipe them out; they were therefore arrested. Al-Muʿtazz at first resisted, then became afraid, and he and his brother testified that they were incapable of the imamate.

Al-Muntaṣir said to them, “Do you imagine that I removed you both out of a desire to live after you until the sons of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb grow up and I can bequeath the office to one of them? By Allah, I coveted no such thing; rather, these men kept insisting, and I feared you would be killed.”

They kissed his hand, and he drew them both to himself.