and he ruled; but the partisans of al-Muqtadir soon rallied to their master, and after a number of men had been killed—among them Abū al-Hayjāʾ ibn Ḥamdān—al-Muqtadir was restored. He pardoned his brother, and al-Qāhir stood before him in tears. Al-Muqtadir said, “My brother, you bear no blame.”

When Muqtadir was later killed, the people again swore allegiance to al-Qāhir. He immediately confiscated the property of his brother’s courtiers and tortured them; he even struck Muqtadir’s mother with his own hand while she was ill. She was afterwards found dead, hanging from a rope. He also tortured Umm Mūsā the stewardess and carried his abuses to such extremes that hearts turned away from him. He summoned Ibn Muqla from Ahwāz, restored him as vizier—although he had previously been banished—yet al-Qāhir never truly held the reins of power. Real authority rested with ʿAlī ibn Buleiq (1), a Rāfidī who intended to curse Muʿāwiya (may Allah be pleased with him) from the pulpits.

Iraq was shaken; the Hanbali shaykh al-Barbahārī was arrested. Al-Qāhir then regained control: he plundered the houses of his opponents, had his nephew—the son of his brother al-Muktafī—walled up alive between two walls, beat Ibn Buleiq and imprisoned him, then ordered his slaughter together with that of Ibn Buleiq’s father. After them he killed Muʾnis the Elder, Yumn, and Ibn Zīrak.

He lavished stipends on the troops, and his standing grew. He proclaimed the prohibition of singing and wine and ordered the destruction of musical instruments (2); yet he himself drank boiled wine and fresh must, became drunk, and listened to singing slave-girls. He went through several viziers.

He killed Abū al-Sarāyā ibn Ḥamdān and Isḥāq al-Nūbakhtī by throwing them into a well and having it filled in, because they had once outbid him for a slave-girl before his accession (3).

Ibn Muqla remained in hiding, corresponding with the army and agitating them against al-Qāhir. He would go out in disguise—sometimes in Persian dress (4), at other times as a beggar. He gave an astrologer gold so that he might tell the commanders, “You must break with al-Qāhir,” and he distributed dinars among dream-interpreters so that whenever someone related