of the caliphate and the management of the funds of the public treasury to three men:
- Atamish the Turk, his closest confidant—virtually a vizier—in whose care was al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Mustaʿīn, whom he was raising and training in horsemanship;
- Shāhik the eunuch;
- the caliph’s mother, from whom he withheld nothing she desired. She had a secretary named Salama ibn Saʿīd, a Christian.
Atamish began seizing money with such extravagance that nothing remained in the treasury. The Turks grew furious and jealous, so they united against him, mounted up, and surrounded the caliphal palace while he was with al-Mustaʿīn. The caliph could neither protect him nor drive them off. They dragged him out in humiliation, killed him, and plundered his wealth, stores, and houses.
After him the caliph appointed as vizier Abū Ṣāliḥ ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Yazdād, assigned Bughā the Younger to Palestine, and put Waṣīf in charge of Ahwaz. (1) Great turmoil followed, and the caliph’s authority was gravely weakened.
On Thursday, the third of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, the Maghāriba troops in Sāmarrāʾ grew restive: they would assemble, ride out, and then disperse.
On Friday, five days before the end of Jumādā al-Ūlā—corresponding to the sixteenth of Tammūz—the people of Sāmarrāʾ were struck by a tremendous rainstorm with thunder and lightning; the sky was completely overcast, and rain poured down in torrents from early morning until the sun turned yellow. (2)
In Dhū al-Ḥijjah a very severe earthquake and terrifying tremor struck Rayy: houses collapsed, many people perished, and the survivors fled into the open countryside.
That year the pilgrimage was led by ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn Mūsā ibn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm the Imam, the governor of Mecca.
Among the notable figures who died that year were: Ayyūb ibn Muḥammad al-Wazzān, (3) al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ṣabbāḥ al-Bazzār, compiler of Kitāb al-Sunan, (4) and Rajāʾ ibn Marajjā the ḥadīth master. (5)