Then al-Muqtadir handed Ibn al-Furāt over to Muʾnis, who confiscated his property and brought about his destruction; the man had been a brutal tyrant (1). In the same year the Khurasani army captured Farghāna (2).

In 313 AH the Qarmaṭian plundered Kūfa, and al-Khāqānī was removed from the vizierate and replaced by Aḥmad ibn al-Khaṣīb (3).

In 314 AH the Byzantines stormed Malatya and put it to the sword; Aḥmad ibn al-Khaṣīb was arrested and ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā (4) became vizier. The Byzantines also seized Samosata. A major engagement then took place between the Qarmaṭians and the caliphal troops, in which the Qarmaṭians captured the army commander Yūsuf ibn Abī al-Sāj.

After that, Abū Ṭāhir the Qarmaṭian (5) advanced with one thousand cavalry and seven hundred infantry. He approached Baghdad and was on the verge of taking it, so the populace cried out in supplication and the bridges were cut, even though the Baghdad forces numbered forty thousand, among them Muʾnis, Abū al-Hayjāʾ ibn Ḥamdān, and his brothers. The Qarmaṭian drew so close that only two parasangs separated him from the city; then he pressed on (6), moved alongside the army, and sent a slave to test the fords, but the man was left bristling like a porcupine with arrows. The Qarmaṭians remained for two days and then marched toward al-Anbār. The army did not dare pursue them—look at such disgraceful failure! (7)

Thābit ibn Sinān said: “Most of al-Muqtadir’s troops fled back to Baghdad before any actual contact, so great was their terror. The Qarmaṭian besieged Hīt for a time and then withdrew into the desert.”