and our days are lessons for humankind:
some break at dawn, others steal in by night.⦗1⦘
Among them are disasters⦗2⦘
that blanch the newborn’s hair and make a friend betray his friend.
A storm of religious turmoil⦗3⦘
whose peak escapes the eye, whose sea is fathomless and deep;
stout combat⦗4⦘, a sword ever at hand,
sheer terror, and a fortress secure;
endless cries from the herald of dawn—
“To arms, to arms!”—yet no one wakes.
Here one lies slain, there another is wounded,
this one is burned, that one drowned;
here a corpse, there a mangled heap⦗5⦘,
and another is smashed by the catapult.
Rape over there, pillage over here,
houses in ruins that once delighted the eye.
Whenever we⦗6⦘ seek to take a path,
we find the road before us barred.
By Allah⦗7⦘ we attain the hope we seek,
and by Allah we repel what we cannot endure.

Ibn Jarīr⦗8⦘ remarks: These verses are ascribed to ʿAlī ibn Umayyah, composed during the strife between the Deposed One and al-Maʾmūn.

The civil war and fighting in Baghdad between Abū Aḥmad, brother of al-Muʿtazz, and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Ṭāhir, al-Mustaʿin’s lieutenant, dragged on; the city was besieged, and its people suffered extreme hardship throughout the remaining months of that year. Great numbers on both sides were killed in repeated clashes and ill-omened days: at times Abū Aḥmad’s troops would gain the upper hand and seize certain gates, whereupon the Ṭāhiriyyah would charge, drive them off⦗9⦘, and kill many, then withdraw to their positions and hold out with grim determination. Yet the people of Baghdad weakened steadily because so little food and merchandise could reach them⦗10⦘.

Toward the end of the year a rumor spread among the populace that Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Ṭāhir meant to depose al-Mustaʿin and swear allegiance to al-Muʿtazz. He repudiated the accusation, apologized to the caliph and to the common people, and swore mighty oaths⦗11⦘—yet he was not cleared.