and lavished him with rich gifts.

Al-Mahdī then distributed among the people of Mecca an immense amount of wealth: he had arrived with thirty million dirhams and one hundred thousand garments; from Egypt there came three hundred thousand dinars, and from Yemen two hundred thousand dinars. He gave all of this to the inhabitants of Mecca and Medina.

The custodians complained to al-Mahdī that they feared the Kaʿbah might collapse because of the great number of coverings draped over it. He therefore ordered that the coverings be removed. When they reached those placed by Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Malik they found them to be of heavy silk brocade, so he commanded that they, too, be taken down, while the coverings provided by the caliphs before and after Hishām were left in place. After it had been stripped, he anointed the Kaʿbah with perfume (khalūf) and then clothed it with a very fine new covering.

It is reported that he consulted Mālik about restoring the Kaʿbah to the expansion carried out by Ibn al-Zubayr, which conformed to what the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—had wished. Mālik replied, “Leave it as it is, for I fear the kings will treat it as a plaything.” So al-Mahdī left it unchanged.

Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān, the deputy governor of Basra, had snow brought to Mecca for him, making al-Mahdī the first caliph for whom snow was transported there. When he entered the radiant city of Medina he enlarged the Prophet’s Mosque. Inside was an enclosed space (maqṣūrah); he removed it, and he intended to shorten the pulpit by the amount that Muʿāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān had added. Mālik said, “I fear the old wood will break if it is disturbed,” so he abandoned the idea.

While in Medina he married Ruqayyah bint ʿAmr al-ʿUthmānīyah, and he chose five hundred of the city’s leading men to accompany him to Iraq as his personal guard and supporters. He put them on stipends in addition to their regular allowances and granted them well-known estates.

[In this year there died:]
• al-Rabīʿ ibn Ṣubayḥ;
• Sufyān ibn Ḥasan, one of al-Zuhrī’s companions;
• Shuʿbah ibn al-Ḥajjāj ibn al-Wadd al-ʿAtakī al-Azdī (1), Abū Bisṭām al-Wāsiṭī, who later settled in Basra (2).

Shuʿbah met al-Ḥasan and Ibn Sīrīn and narrated from many of the Successors. A great number of his teachers, peers, and the imams of Islam transmitted hadith from him. Among the hadith scholars he was honoured with the title “Commander of the Faithful in Hadith,” as al-Thawrī said.

Yahyā ibn Maʿīn remarked, “He is the imam of the God-fearing.” He exemplified the utmost asceticism, scrupulousness, simplicity, prodigious memory, and excellence of conduct.