the Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyīn (1), and Ibn Khallikān (2) also treated it in his Wafayāt, doing so with great thoroughness, eloquence, and grace.

Abū Zurʿah (3) — ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Rāzī — was one of the celebrated ḥuffāẓ. It is reported that he had memorised seven hundred thousand hadiths. He was a jurist, scrupulously pious, ascetic, devoted in worship, humble and reverent. The people (4) of his time praised him and acknowledged that he outstripped his peers.

When he was still a young man, whenever he met with Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal for scholarly discussion, Aḥmad would limit himself to the prescribed prayers, omitting the recommended ones, deeming their session of study sufficient.

He died on Monday, the last day of Dhu al-Ḥijjah of this year. He had been born in 200 AH, though some say 190 AH. We have given his full biography in al-Takmīl.

Others who died this year were:

Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah, the judge of Damascus (5);

Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā al-Ṣadafī of Egypt (6), another of those who transmitted from al-Shāfiʿī. We have mentioned him in both al-Takmīl and the Ṭabaqāt.

Qabīḥah, the mother of al-Muʿtazz (7): she was among the favoured concubines of al-Mutawakkil ʿalā-Allāh. She amassed jewels, pearls, gold and ornaments the like of which had never been seen. All of it was later taken from her; her son al-Muʿtazz was killed; and she grudgingly put aside fifty thousand dinars in an attempt to shield him. She died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of this year.

[Then the year 265 AH began.]

In it a battle was fought between Ibn Laythawayh, Abū Aḥmad’s governor over Junbulāʾ (8), and Sulaymān ibn Jāmiʿ. Ibn Laythawayh won the day against Ibn Jāmiʿ, who represented the vile leader of the Zanj, killing many of his followers and seizing from them