hoisting it on a lance for the march to Baghdad; ornamental pavilions were set up, and the day became one long remembered. The populace then began to return to the cities the villain had occupied, and his reign had lasted fifteen years. (1)

Al-Ṣūlī says: “He killed one million and five hundred Muslims.” I add: the same figure is reported for the dead of Bābak’s revolt. He further relates that the villain used to mount the pulpit in his city and revile ʿUthmān, ʿAlī, Ṭalḥah, and ʿĀʾishah, following the doctrine of the Azāriqah. In his camp he would auction off captive Alid women for two dirhams each. A single Zanj man might possess roughly ten Alid women, keeping them as concubines while they served his wife.

In Shaʿbān al-Muʿtamid was escorted back to Sāmarrāʾ with full pomp.

In Upper Egypt Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥasanī rose in rebellion; the Egyptian army fought him repeatedly until he was captured and killed.

That same year witnessed the first appearance of the ʿUbaydid mission, in Yemen.

In it as well the Byzantines advanced on Tarsus with one hundred thousand men; Yazmān the chamberlain attacked them by night—some say he slew seventy thousand of them, their king was killed, and the Cross of the Crucifixion was taken.

Praise be to Allah for this splendid victory, the like of which had never been heard, and for His perfect favour upon Islam in the villain’s demise.

His mother said: “His father took him from me and was gone for years. I remarried and bore a child. Then the boy returned after his father died in Yemen and stayed with me for a time, never ceasing to talk of al-Rayy…"