In the same year: Ismāʿīl ibn Mūsā began the construction of the city of Lāridah (1) in al-Andalus (2).

[Then the year 271 AH began.]

During it the caliph removed ʿAmr ibn al-Layth from the governorship of Khurāsān, ordered that he be cursed from the pulpits, entrusted the province to Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir, and sent an army against ʿAmr, whereupon ʿAmr was defeated (3).

In the same year a battle was fought between Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Muʿtaḍid, son of al-Muwaffaq Abū Aḥmad, and Khumarawayh ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn. When Khumarawayh succeeded his father over Egypt and Syria, an army dispatched by the caliph—commanded by Isḥāq ibn Kundājiq, governor of al-Jazīrah, together with Ibn Abī al-Sāj—advanced against him and engaged him in the district of Shīraz (4). Khumarawayh refused to surrender Syria, so they sought aid from Abū al-ʿAbbās. He joined them, broke Khumarawayh’s army, took Damascus and secured it, then marched toward Khumarawayh to the environs of al-Ramla, to a watering place flanked by mills. There they fought, and for that reason the engagement was called the Battle of the Mills. At first the advantage was Abū al-ʿAbbās’s; he routed Khumarawayh, who fled headlong and did not stop until he reached Egyptian territory. Abū al-ʿAbbās and his men then busied themselves with plundering the enemy camp. While they were thus occupied, an ambush detachment from Khumarawayh’s forces descended upon them; the Egyptians set their swords among them, many were killed, the army collapsed, and Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Muʿtaḍid himself fled. He did not halt until he reached Damascus, whose people would not open their gates to him, so he withdrew until he arrived at Ṭarsūs.

The Egyptian and Iraqi armies kept on fighting, neither of them having a commander. In the end the Egyptians prevailed, for they installed Abū al-ʿAshāʾir, Khumarawayh’s brother, as their leader; thus they gained the upper hand and secured Damascus and the rest of Syria. This (5) is counted among the strangest of encounters.

That same year many wars were waged in al-Andalus, in the lands of the Maghrib (6).

Also in this year, Muḥammad and ʿAlī, the two sons of al-Ḥusayn ibn Jaʿfar ibn Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn—