Also in this year the Zanj laid siege to Tustar ⦗1⦘ and were on the brink of taking it. Takin al-Bukhari arrived and, without even removing his travel clothes, engaged the Zanj, inflicting upon them an exceedingly terrible rout. He slew an uncountable multitude of them, while their commander, ʿAli ibn Aban al-Muhallabi, fled with his sword blunted ⦗2⦘—disgraced and repulsed. Ibn Jarir ⦗3⦘ remarks: “This was the famous battle of Madmudak ⦗4⦘.”
Afterwards, ʿAli ibn Aban al-Muhallabi began corresponding with Takin, attempting to win him over to himself and to the Zanj leader. Takin inclined to comply, but the matter reached Masrur al-Balkhi. He marched against him, offered him apparent safe-conduct, then seized him, put him in irons, and Takin’s army dispersed: one faction joined the Zanj, another attached itself to Muhammad ibn ʿUbayd Allah al-Kurdafi, and a third threw in its lot with Masrur al-Balkhi after he had granted them amnesty.
Masrur then appointed in his place over that district another amir named Aghartamish.
In the same year the pilgrimage was led by Harun ibn Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn ʿIsa ibn Musa al-ʿAbbasi.
Among the notable deaths of that year were:
• Ahmad ibn Mansur al-Ramadi ⦗5⦘, a transmitter of the narrations of ʿAbd al-Razzaq. He had accompanied Imam Ahmad and was counted among the abdāl (the righteous “substitutes”); he died at the age of eighty-three.
• Saʿdan ibn Nasr ⦗6⦘.
• ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Mukharrami ⦗7⦘.
• ʿAli ibn Harb al-Taʾi al-Mawsili ⦗8⦘.
• Abu Hafs al-Naysaburi ⦗9⦘.