bold, and crafty; Ibn al-Najjār has recorded his entire career in detail.

It is reported that his father was once seen urinating in the Mosque of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and that single act was said to have set half the world ablaze.

The miscreant’s mother used to say, “My son did not leave a single person of learning in Rayy without seeking him out. Then he travelled to Khurasan, remained absent for two years and came back; after that he disappeared again—the absence in which he finally set out. A letter reached me from Basra together with some money, but I refused to accept it, having become certain of his blood-shedding and the devastation he brought upon cities.”

I say: his father, like the son, was a devilish mastermind.

ʿAlī himself recounted: “When I was a boy I fell ill, and my father sat at my bedside and asked my mother, ‘How is he?’ She replied, ‘He is dying.’ He said, ‘If he dies, who will ruin Basra?’ Those words remained lodged in my heart.”

It is also said that his father died in Sāmarrāʾ in 231 AH.

ʿAlī then took to composing panegyrical poetry, became a scribe, claimed the imamate and knowledge of the unseen, and—out of fear—moved from Sāmarrāʾ to Rayy to pursue an inheritance in 249 AH.

I remark: After the killing of al-Mutawakkil and his son, and of those other weak caliphs who were put to death, the caliphate was gravely shaken. Every devil became eager to pounce: al-Ṣaffār rose in Khurasan (1) and his dominions expanded; this villain rebelled in Basra and did what he did; the Byzantines became agitated, and the crisis deepened.

Some years later the Qarmaṭians (2) and the Bedouin revolted, and in the Maghrib there appeared ʿUbayd—