and they came to love his brother al-Muwaffaq.(1)

In that same month of Rajab the Zanj overran Basra, al-Ubulla, and Ahwaz; they killed, pillaged, and carried off captives—mere household slaves of the common folk, a rabble of base riffraff clustering around the vile rebel.(2)

In Kufa, ʿAlī b. Zayd, a ʿAlid, rose in revolt; his power swelled and he routed the caliph’s army. His brother Ḥasan b. Zayd surfaced in Rayy, so Mūsā b. Bugha marched out to fight him.

That year the pilgrimage was led by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿĪsā b. al-Manṣūr al-ʿAbbāsī.

A proclamation was issued concerning Ṣāliḥ b. Waṣīf, who was in hiding: “Whoever produces him shall receive ten thousand dinars.”

It chanced that a youth entered a side alley, noticed an open door, walked through the vestibule, and found Ṣāliḥ asleep. Recognizing him, he hurried to Mūsā b. Bugha and informed him. Mūsā dispatched a detachment that seized Ṣāliḥ and marched him bare-headed to the Jawsaq. A Turk struck him from behind and felled him, and they cut off his head shortly before the murder of al-Muhtadī.

Someone said, “May Allah have mercy on Ṣāliḥ; he was truly a loyal adviser.”(3)

Al-Ṣūlī, however, relates that they tortured him in a bathhouse—just as he had done with al-Muʿtazz—until he confessed where the money was, after which they strangled him.

The Zanj put some thirty thousand people to the sword in al-Ubulla. Saʿīd the Chamberlain fought them, but they gained the upper hand, killed many of his men, and several battles ensued between them and the regular army.

In that same year Michael, son of Theophilus, the Byzantine tyrant, was killed by Basil the Slav,(4) bringing Michael’s reign to twenty-four years.(5)