and Mufaddal ibn Fadalah (1): he served twice as chief judge of Egypt. A devout and trustworthy man, he once asked Allah to remove worldly hope from his heart, and it was taken away, so that thereafter nothing of this life pleased him. He then begged Allah to restore it; Allah returned it to him, and he resumed his former state.

Yaʿqūb al-Tāʾib, the penitent ascetic of Kūfah.

ʿAlī ibn al-Muwaffaq relates from Mansūr ibn ʿAmmār:

“I went out one night, thinking dawn had broken, yet it was still dark. I sat down beside a small doorway and heard a young man weeping as he said:

‘By Your might and majesty, I never meant by my sin to oppose You; rather my soul enticed me, my wretchedness overpowered me, and Your kindly veiling deluded me. Now—who will rescue me from Your punishment? To whose rope shall I cling if You cut Your rope from me? Alas for the days I have spent in disobedience to my Lord! Woe to me! How often I repent, and how often I relapse! The time has come for me to feel shame before my Lord—Majestic and Exalted.’

Mansūr continues: I said, ‘I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed Satan. In the name of Allah, the All-Merciful, the Compassionate:

“O you who believe, guard yourselves and your families against a Fire whose fuel is people and stones, over which are angels, fierce and stern, who do not disobey Allah in what He commands them, but do whatever they are commanded.” (Q 66:6)

‘I then heard a loud cry and great commotion. I went off to take care of a need, and when I returned past that door I found a bier laid out. I asked about it and was told that the young man had died upon hearing that verse.’

Then the year 182 AH began.

In that year Hārūn al-Rashīd secured the oath of allegiance for his son ʿAbd Allah al-Maʾmūn to succeed after his brother Muḥammad al-Amīn ibn Zubaydah. This occurred at al-Raqqah after his return from the pilgrimage. He placed al-Maʾmūn under the care of Jaʿfar ibn Yaḥyā al-Barmakī, sent him to Baghdad with a company of his own retainers, appointed him governor of Khurāsān and its dependencies, and bestowed on him the honorific al-Maʾmūn.

That same year Yaḥyā ibn Khālid al-Barmakī returned from his sojourn near Mecca to Baghdad.

In it ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Ṣāliḥ led the summer campaign, reaching the city of the Companions of the Cave.

In it the Byzantines blinded their king Constantine ibn Alyūn and set over them his mother Irene, whose epithet was Aʿṭishah (2).

That year the pilgrimage was led on behalf of the people by Mūsā ibn ʿĪsā ibn al-ʿAbbās.