(1) He said: In this same year a prisoner-exchange took place between the Muslims and the Byzantines in the region of Tarsus, in the presence of the Chief Judge, Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid, acting under the Caliph’s authorization and having appointed Ibn Abī al-Shawārib as his deputy. The Muslim captives numbered 785 men and 125 women. Earlier, the king’s mother, Tadūrah—may Allah curse her—had presented Christianity to the captives in her hands, who were about 20,000 in all; whoever accepted the faith was spared, while anyone who refused was slain. She killed 12,000 of them, some embraced Christianity, and the remainder—the ones just mentioned—came to roughly 900 men and women.

Also in this year the Bujah raided a frontier garrison in Egyptian territory. Until then the Bujah had not attacked the Muslims because a truce existed between them; but they broke the truce and declared open hostility. The Bujah are one of the black African peoples of the western lands, as are the Nūbah, the Farawiyyah, the Zararīr, the Baksūm, and many other nations known only to their Creator. Their countries contain mines of gold and precious stones, and they were obliged to deliver an annual levy of these minerals to Egypt.

When al-Mutawakkil assumed power they withheld what they owed for several years, so the Egyptian deputy governor—Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm al-Bādhghīsī, a client of al-Hādī, known as Qawṣarah—wrote to al-Mutawakkil about the matter. The Caliph became extremely angry and consulted his advisers about the Bujah. They said: “Commander of the Faithful, they are a people of camels and desert life; their land is distant and waterless, and any army sent there would have to carry its own provisions of food and water.” This dissuaded him from sending an expedition.

Later he learned that they were raiding the outskirts of Upper Egypt and the Egyptians feared for their lives, so he prepared Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qummī for war against them, granting him the governorship of all territories adjoining their land. He wrote to the officials of Egypt ordering them to supply him with whatever food and other provisions he required. Troops from those districts joined him until he entered Bujah territory with 20,000 cavalry and infantry.

He loaded food and condiments onto seven ships, instructing their crews to sail by sea and rendezvous with him when he had penetrated to the center of Bujah country. He marched on, entered their land, and passed beyond their mines. The king of the Bujah, whose name was ʿAlī Bābā, approached with a host many times larger than the force accompanying Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qummī. They were polytheists who worshiped idols. The king strove to protract the fighting, hoping the Muslims’ provisions would run out so that he could seize them with his own hands. When the Muslims’ supplies were indeed exhausted and the black Africans grew confident, Allah—praise be to Him—brought those ships safely in. They carried an immense quantity of food, dates, oil, and other necessities, which the commander distributed among the Muslims according to their needs. The Bujah then abandoned all hope of starving the Muslims to death.