Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Balkhī. That individual was a liar who would attach fictitious chains of transmission to ordinary speech and relate repudiated ḥadiths.
Among the lines of verse composed by Ibn Abī al-Dunyā is the following episode: some of his companions once sat waiting for him to come out to them; a downpour cut him off, so he sent them a slip of paper on which he had written (1):
“I yearn to behold you—
O my friends, my hearing and my sight!
How could I forget you while my heart is with you?
Only this rain now stands between us.”
He passed away in Baghdad in Jumāda al-Ūlā of this very year at the age of seventy. Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb the judge led the funeral prayer over him, and he was buried in al-Shunīziyya—may Allah have mercy on him.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAmr (2), Abū Zurʿa al-Dimashqī, the great ḥāfiẓ well-known among the scholars, also died this year.
Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm (3), Ibn al-Mawwāz, the Mālikī jurist, likewise passed away. He had distinct preferences within the school of Imām Mālik, among them his opinion that sending blessings upon the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) during the prayer is obligatory.
[Then the year 282 AH began.]
On Tuesday, the 5th of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, al-Muʿtaḍid bi-llāh consummated his marriage to the daughter of Khumārawayh. She had arrived in Baghdad accompanied by her uncle and by Ibn al-Jaṣṣāṣ while the caliph himself was away. Her entry to his residence was a memorable occasion, and the public were forbidden to use the streets.
In the same year the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid forbade the populace to practise on the day of Nawrūz (4) the customs to which they had become accustomed—lighting fires, splashing water, and other acts resembling those of the Zoroastrians. He likewise prohibited the farmers from bringing their customary gifts to secluded dignitaries (5) on that day, ordering that the presentation be postponed to 11 June. He named the occasion “the Muʿtaḍidī Nawrūz,” and wrote to all the provinces and governors to that effect.
In Dhū al-Ḥijjah of this same year, Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad al-Mādharaʾī arrived from Damascus by express courier and reported