and in the days of al-ʿAzīz the River Palace was built—the like of which had never been seen in East or West (1)—along with the Qarafa Mosque and the Golden Palace (2).

During his reign the public reviling of the Companions was openly proclaimed.

In the year 366, Jamīlah bint Nāṣir al-Dawlah, lord of Mosul, performed the pilgrimage. Her caravan included four hundred curtained litters, so that no one knew in which one she herself was riding. She freed five hundred slaves, scattered ten thousand mithqāls (3) of gold over the Kaʿbah, and served all the pilgrims a drink of sawīq sweetened with sugar and cooled with ice, as al-Thaʿālibī relates. She also conferred robes and garments on fifty thousand people.

Sultan ʿAḍud al-Dawlah had sought her hand, but she refused; enraged, he later gained power over her, impoverished and tortured her, and finally forced her to sit in a tavern so that she might earn through indecency what he demanded. As the guards were escorting her there, she threw herself into the Tigris and drowned—may Allah pardon her (4).

In the year 67, battles took place between the Egyptians and the amir Hiftakīn (5). Many were killed, and Hiftakīn’s courage became proverbial: he routed the armies, and Jawhar the commander fled from him.

The ruler of Egypt, al-ʿAzīz, therefore marched out against him in person, and they met at Ramla. Hiftakīn, mounted on a dark bay stallion, was darting about among the troops. Al-ʿAzīz sent him an envoy with the message: “You have unsettled me and obliged me to enter the fray myself. I seek peace, and I will grant you all of Syria.” Hiftakīn thereupon dismounted, kissed the ground, offered excuses—but the fighting still broke out. He said, “The opportunity is lost,” then charged the enemy’s left wing and routed it, whereupon al-ʿAzīz himself charged at him in