I burst into tears for Nūbād the moment I saw it, and I glorified the Most Merciful when it looked back at me. (1)
I said to it, “Where are those whom I used to know beneath your shade in security? Where is my former age?” (2)
It replied, “They have gone on and left me in their stead—and who is there that can remain after the blows of time?” (3)

The narrator said: Tears welled up in al-Muʿtaḍid’s eyes, and he repeated, “Who is there that can remain after the blows of time!?”

In this same year al-Muʿtaḍid ordered that the difficult pass of Ḥulwān be made easier, and twenty thousand dinars were spent on it; people had been suffering extreme hardship because of that ascent. (4)

That year as well al-Muʿtaḍid enlarged the Mosque of al-Manṣūr by annexing al-Manṣūr’s residence to it, at a cost of twenty thousand dinars. The house had served as the mosque’s qiblah side, so he converted it into an independent mosque, opened seventeen doorways between the two structures (5), and moved the pulpit and the miḥrāb (6) into the new mosque so that they would stand at the qiblah of the congregational mosque, as was customary for the Friday khuṭbahs (7). Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (8) reports that at this time Badr, al-Muʿtaḍid’s freedman, added the projecting balconies from al-Manṣūr’s palace—known as the Badriyya—to the mosque.

[Account of the Construction of the Caliphal Residence in Baghdad]

Al-Muʿtaḍid was the first to build it in this very year, and he was the first—and, until the end of their dynasty, the last—of the caliphs to reside there. The complex had originally been the home of al-Ḥasan ibn Sahl, known as the Ḥasanid Palace; afterwards it passed to his daughter Būrān, whom al-Maʾmūn married. She lived there until al-Muʿtaḍid persuaded her to vacate it, and she agreed. She repaired what had decayed, restored what had fallen into disrepair, furnished every part with what suited it, installed the appropriate slave-girls and servants, stocked it with delectable foods and with whatever was worth storing in those days, and then sent the keys to al-Muʿtaḍid. When he entered, he was astounded by the abundance he saw inside. He then enlarged and extended the residence, built a wall around it so that its area matched that of the city of Shiraz, laid out the parade ground (9), and afterwards erected a palace overlooking the Tigris. Then