The earth is draped in darkness while fire shines with radiance;
fire has been worshipped ever since fire first existed. (1)

So al-Mahdi ordered that he be beaten, and he was flogged until he died. It is also said that he drowned, after which his body was brought to Basra in this same year.

In this year there died: al-Hasan ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Ḥayy; Ḥammād ibn Salamah; al-Rabīʿ ibn Muslim; Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muslim; and ʿUtbah al-Ghulām—he is ʿUtbah ibn Abān ibn Ṣamaʿah (2), one of the famous devotees and much-weeping ascetics. He earned his livelihood with his own hands plaiting palm-frond mats, fasted continually, and broke his fast on bread and salt. Also deceased were al-Qāsim al-Ḥadhdhāʾ; Abū Hilāl Muḥammad ibn Sulaym; Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah; and Abū Ḥamzah al-Sukkarī (3), Muḥammad ibn Maymūn.

[Then the year 168 entered.]

During its Ramadan the Byzantines broke the treaty they had with the Muslims—an agreement Hārūn al-Rashīd had concluded at the instruction of his father al-Mahdi. They observed the truce for only thirty-two months. The deputy governor of al-Jazīrah therefore sent a cavalry detachment against them; they killed, captured, plundered, and returned safely.

In the same year al-Mahdi established the dawāwīn al-azimmah (audit bureaus), something the Umayyads had never instituted. (4)