Al-Rashid kept repeating the line, “Only the helpless one fails to seize control,” and it pleased him greatly. When morning came, Yaḥyā ibn Khālid entered, and al-Rashid recited the two verses to him, showing how much he admired them. Yaḥyā grasped the hint, grew fearful, and asked who had quoted the poem to the caliph. He was told, “Abū al-ʿAwḍ.” Yaḥyā therefore sent for the man, paid him the thirty thousand dirhams in full, and from his own purse added twenty thousand more; his two sons al-Faḍl and Jaʿfar did the same. Not long afterward al-Rashid struck at the Barmakids, and the affair between him and them unfolded as is well known.

When al-Wāthiq heard the whole story, he was delighted and likewise kept repeating the poet’s words: “Only the helpless one fails to seize control.” Immediately thereafter he cracked down on the state secretaries and confiscated from them enormous sums of money (1).

That same year the pilgrimage was led by Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd, who had held the post of Commander of the Pilgrims in previous years.

Among the notable deaths in this year were:
• Khalaf ibn Hishām al-Bazzār, one of the celebrated Qur’an reciters (2);
• ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Musnadī (3);
• Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād al-Khuzāʿī, a leading imam of the Sunnah after previously having been a prominent Jahmite, and the author of well-known works on trials and other matters (4);
• Dīnār ibn ʿAbd Allāh (5), to whom a certain manuscript is falsely attributed—its chain of transmission up to him is lofty, yet the text itself is fabricated.