So they quietened down. Al-Muktafi then arrived in Baghdad, having sailed downstream in a Sumayriyya (1), and the day was one long remembered. A section of the bridge collapsed into the Tigris; among those who fell was the judge Abū ʿUmar, but he was pulled out unharmed. Al-Muktafi took up residence in the Caliphal Palace, the poets delivered their panegyrics, and he granted al-Qāsim seven robes of honour and girded him with a sword. He demolished the underground prisons his father had constructed, turned them into mosques, and restored people’s properties—which his father had seized for the building of a palace. He governed with fairness, and the people loved him (2).

In the same year, Muḥammad ibn Hārūn encamped at Bayḍ, and al-Tuqā, the governor of Ray, confronted him, routed his army, killed him together with his two sons and his commanders, and seized power (3).

An earthquake shook Baghdad for several days, and in Basra a wind rose that uprooted most of its palm trees. Zakrawayh the Qarmaṭian emerged, enticed the Arabs of the Sawād, terrorised the highways, and cut the roads.

As for Ibn Hārūn, his power grew until his army numbered one hundred thousand. The Khurāsān army marched out to meet him, drove him back toward Daylam, and his host scattered; he fled to Daylam with about a thousand men (4).

Meanwhile the cause of Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Shīʿī, the Fatimid missionary in the Maghrib, gained further strength.

Al-Muktafi himself led the people in the ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā prayer at the open-air place of prayer.