—close to three hundred thousand fighters armed with sword, spear, and sling, as well as the throngs who merely swelled their ranks. Al-Muwaffaq placed his son Abū al-ʿAbbās at the head of the advance guard; the youth pressed forward until he stood beneath the royal citadel and imposed a siege the like of which had never been seen. The Zanj were amazed at his boldness and daring, given how young he was. Masses of them converged on him from every direction, yet he routed them, felling Bahbūdh, the greatest of the rebel’s commanders, with arrows and stones.
Soon after, a faction of the Zanj leader’s officers and soldiers defected (1) to al-Muwaffaq. He received them with honor and bestowed splendid robes of distinction upon them; many others, encouraged by this, followed suit and joined his camp.
On the fifteenth of Shaʿbān Abū Aḥmad mounted his horse and proclaimed a general amnesty for all save the Zanj leader himself. A great multitude from the rebel army therefore crossed over to Abū Aḥmad—praise be to Allah.
Al-Muwaffaq then built, facing the Zanj leader’s city, a town he called al-Muwaffaqiyyah. He ordered goods and merchandise to be transferred there until it contained every kind of commodity in unprecedented abundance, and its stature grew. He founded it solely to serve as a base from which to wage war against the Zanj leader.
Ferocious battles ensued, and the fighting remained intense until the year drew to a close while they were still besieging that accursed city (2) and those inside it. By then a vast number of the rebels—nearly fifty thousand of their elite commanders and troops—had abandoned the Zanj leader and gone over to al-Muwaffaq. Meanwhile al-Muwaffaq and his forces, praise belongs to Allah, were increasing in numbers, strength, triumph, and victory.
That year the pilgrimage was led by Hārūn ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Mūsā ibn ʿĪsā al-Hāshimī.
Among the notable persons who died in that year were Ismāʿīl ibn Sammūyah (3); Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm, known as Shadhān (4); Baḥr ibn Naṣr al-Khawlānī (5); and ʿAbbās al-Turqufī (6).