you had only asked us about him, we would have shown you where he was; from early today he has been here, playing with the other boys. Then al-Asmaʿī recited (1):

A perfect bedfellow for a youth, when the night turns chill at dawn and the shrike is trilling;
Allah has adorned her in the heart just as a child is made lovely in a father’s eye.

[Then the year 258 AH began]

On Monday, when ten days of Rabīʿ al-Awwal remained, the caliph al-Muʿtamid ʿalā Allah invested his brother Abū Aḥmad with authority over Egypt, Qinnasrīn, and the frontier districts (al-ʿAwāṣim). On Thursday, the first day of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, he held court, bestowed robes of honor upon his brother and upon Mufliḥ, and the two set out for Basra at the head of a large, well-equipped army. Fierce fighting broke out; Mufliḥ was killed in mid-Jumādā al-Ūlā when an arrow without a head struck him in the chest. He was found dead the next morning; his body was carried to Sāmarrā and buried there.

In this year:

• Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad al-Baḥrānī, one of the principal commanders of the Zanj leader, was captured and taken to Sāmarrā. He was flogged two hundred lashes in front of al-Muʿtamid, then his right hand and left foot were cut off, after which he was hacked with swords, slaughtered, and finally burned.

He had been seized by Abū Aḥmad’s army in a tremendous engagement with the Zanj—may Allah disgrace them. When news of this reached the Zanj leader, he was aggrieved and said, “I had been counseled about him, and it was said to me: ‘Killing him would be better for you, for he was greedy and would keep the choicest spoils for himself.’”

This accursed man—the Zanj leader who falsely claimed a lineage not his own—used to say, “Prophethood was offered to me, but I feared I could not shoulder its burdens, so I refused it.”

• In Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, Saʿīd ibn Aḥmad al-Bāhilī arrived at the palace gate; he was lashed seven hundred times until he died, after which he was crucified.

• A judge and twenty-four followers of the Zanj leader were executed at the Bāb al-ʿĀmma gate in Sāmarrā.

• Muḥammad ibn Wāṣil returned to obedience to the sultan, delivered the land tax of Fārs, and conditions there became stable and orderly.

• Late in Rajab a tremendous battle took place between Abū Aḥmad and the Zanj, with heavy casualties on both sides.

Subsequently Abū Aḥmad found his quarters inauspicious, withdrew to Wāsiṭ, and settled there at the beginning of Shaʿbān; an earthquake then struck the area.