A crier called out to them after they had been laid in their graves:
“Where are the couches, the crowns, and the silken robes? (1)
Where are the pampered faces—faces once hidden behind curtains and canopies? (2)
The grave spoke on their behalf when it was asked; it said, ‘Those very faces are now a battlefield upon which worms vie with one another.
Long did they eat and drink through the ages, but after that lifetime of feasting they themselves have been consumed.’”

He said: Al-Mutawakkil wept until the earth beneath him was soaked, and everyone present wept with him. He ordered the wine to be removed, granted him four thousand dinars, (3) pardoned him, and returned him to his house in honor. May Allah have mercy on him.

[Then came the year 255 AH.]

In this year a battle took place between Mufliḥ and al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd al-Ṭālibī. Mufliḥ defeated him, entered Āmul in Ṭabaristān, burned al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd’s dwellings, and then pursued him into Daylam.

Also this year a severe engagement occurred between Yaʿqūb ibn al-Layth and ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Quraysh ibn Shibl. ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn sent, on his behalf, a man called Ṭawq ibn al-Mughallis, who held out for more than a month until Yaʿqūb captured Ṭawq along with the leading men of his force.

Yaʿqūb then advanced against that same ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, seized him as well, and took his territories—namely Kirmān—adding them to the realm of Sijistān already under his control.

Afterwards Yaʿqūb ibn al-Layth sent al-Muʿtazz bi-Llāh a splendid gift of mounts, falcons, and luxurious garments.

In the same year the caliph appointed Sulaymān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir as deputy governor of Baghdad and al-Sawād in Rabīʿ al-Awwal.

That year Ṣāliḥ ibn Waṣīf arrested Aḥmad ibn Isrāʾīl—the secretary of al-Muʿtazz—al-Ḥasan ibn Mukhallad, secretary to Qabīḥah the mother of al-Muʿtazz, and Abū Nūḥ ʿĪsā ibn Ibrāhīm. They had conspired to plunder the public treasury, so he had them beaten and secured their written pledges to repay vast sums, all without the caliph’s private approval. Their money, possessions, and estates were confiscated; they were dubbed “the treacherous secretaries,” and the caliph, under compulsion, appointed others in their stead.

In Rajab of this year ʿĪsā ibn Jaʿfar and ʿAlī ibn Zayd—both Ḥasanids—rose in Kūfah, where they killed ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd ibn ʿĪsā, and their cause there swelled in strength.