Sharaf al-Dawla was noted for his justice. In his days Abu Manṣūr Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan served as vizier; he came with twenty million dirhams and was a man of gentleness and piety. (1)

One instance of Sharaf al-Dawla’s fairness was his restoring to the sayyid Abu al-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. ʿUmar his confiscated estates, whose yearly revenue exceeded one million dinars. (2)

Prices in Baghdad soared: a kārah (3) of coarse flour (4) sold for two hundred and forty dirhams. (5)

Around the same time Basra was struck by a scorching simoom, (6) and many people died in the streets. (7)

At Famm al-Ṣulḥ a violent wind tore through the Tigris, so that—according to report—the river-bed was laid bare; it damaged the town’s congregational mosque and lifted a boat laden with livestock, depositing it in the district of Jūkha, (9) where it was seen several days later. We ask God for well-being. (10)

When Sharaf al-Dawla died, the caliph al-Taʾiʿ came to offer condolences to his brother Bahāʾ al-Dawla Abū Naṣr. (11) Abū Naṣr kissed the ground several times, and al-Taʾiʿ invested him with the collar, the two bracelets, and the seven robes of honor, thereby conferring sovereignty upon him. He confirmed in the vizierate the aforesaid Abu Manṣūr—known as Ibn