so that he would help him with his work (1), but the boy wanted nothing except to listen to ḥadīth. It so happened that Hushaym fell ill, whereupon Abū Shaybah, the qāḍī of Wāsiṭ, came to visit him, accompanied by a crowd of people. When Bashīr saw this he was delighted and said, “My son, has your reputation reached the point that the judge himself has come to my house? From today I shall no longer stop you from seeking ḥadīth.”

Hushaym was counted among the leading scholars; Mālik, Shuʿbah, al-Thawrī, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, and many others narrated from him. He was also one of the righteous devotees, and for the last ten years of his life he performed the dawn prayer with the ablution of the night prayer.

• Yaḥyā ibn Zakarīyā (2) ibn Abī Zāʾidah, the judge of al-Madāʾin, was one of the reliable imams.

• Yūnus ibn Ḥabīb (3) was an outstanding grammarian. He studied grammar under Abū ʿAmr ibn al-ʿAlāʾ and others, and al-Kisāʾī and al-Farrāʾ learned from him. He held a study circle in Basra that was attended by scholars, men of letters, and eloquent speakers, locals and visitors alike. He died this year at the age of seventy-eight.

Then came the year 184 AH.

In it, Hārūn al-Rashīd returned from al-Raqqah to Baghdad. He compelled the people to pay the land-tax arrears that were still due, appointing a man who beat and imprisoned them for that purpose. He likewise appointed governors over the frontier districts, dismissed some, appointed others, withheld grants, and bestowed favors.

In the Jazīrah Abū ʿAmr al-Shārī rebelled, so al-Rashīd dispatched Shahrāzūr against him. The pilgrimage that year was led by Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAbbāsī.

Among those who died in that year was Aḥmad, son of the Commander of the Believers al-Rashīd (4). He was an ascetic, devout worshipper who had adopted a life of renunciation, eating only what he earned with his own hands by working with clay as a common laborer. He owned nothing but a marr and a zambīl (5)—that is, a shovel and a basket—and he used to work every