so the leading commanders gathered—among them Munis al-Khadim (1)—with the vizier al-Qasim ibn ʿUbayd Allah. They advised that the people assemble to renew the pledge of allegiance to al-Muktafi billah ʿAli ibn al-Muʿtadid billah. This was done, the covenant was firmly confirmed, and much good resulted.
When death drew near to al-Muʿtadid he recited for himself (2):
Enjoy this world, for you will not endure;
take its purest draught when it is clear and leave the dregs (3).
Put no trust in Time—for I put my trust in it,
yet it left me no condition intact and observed none of my rights.
I slew the proud chieftains of men and spared no foe,
nor, out of noble forbearance, did I grant any living soul a respite (4).
I emptied the palace of sovereignty of every contender—
I scattered them westward in exile and tore them east in flight (5).
Then, when I had risen to the very stars in might and elevation,
and the necks of all creation had become my bondsmen’s collars (6),
Death let fly an arrow that quenched my glowing ember;
here am I, forthwith cast into my grave.
All that I amassed availed me nothing, nor did I find
with the King of Recompense any leniency for my love of it (7).
I ruined both my worldly life and my religion in folly;
who, in his downfall, could be more wretched than I?
Oh, would that I knew what I shall meet after my death—
shall I come to Allah’s favor, or shall I be cast into His Fire?
His death—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—occurred on the night of Monday, with eight days remaining of Rabiʿ al-Awwal of this same year. He had not yet reached fifty years of age. His caliphate therefore lasted nine years, nine months, and thirteen days.
Among the sons he left were ʿAli al-Muktafi, Jaʿfar al-Muqtadir, and Harun. Among his daughters he left eleven, though some say seventeen. He left in the public treasury seventeen million dinars. Because he refrained (8) from spending wealth except in its proper avenues, some people branded him as miserly. Others, however, count him among the rightly guided caliphs numbered among the twelve leaders explicitly mentioned in the hadith of Jabir ibn Samurah (9)—and Allah knows best.