recommended to him whatever would re-hydrate his body, yet he persisted in doing the very opposite until his strength deserted him. The manner of his death has already been detailed in his earlier entry.
Badr, the freedman of al-Muʿtaḍid and commander-in-chief (1): During al-Muʿtaḍid’s lifetime the vizier al-Qāsim ibn ʿUbayd Allāh had determined to divert the caliphate from al-Muʿtaḍid’s sons. He sounded Badr out on the plan, but Badr refused and declared that he would pledge allegiance only to the children of his master. When al-Muktafī acceded to the throne, the vizier feared the consequences of what he had once confided to Badr, so he worked against him covertly in the caliph’s court. At length the caliph confiscated Badr’s properties and funds while the latter was in Wāsiṭ, then issued him a guarantee of safe-conduct. Badr came, whereupon the vizier ordered his execution. He was killed on Friday, the sixth of Ramadan that same year; his head was carried off, while the body was left. His family reclaimed it and later sent it in a coffin to Mecca, where he was buried as he had requested. Before his death he had emancipated every slave he owned. When they prepared to kill him, he prayed two rakʿahs for Allah—exalted is He—, after which they slew him.
al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad (2): the son of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Fahm ibn Muḥriz ibn Ibrāhīm, Abū ʿAlī, the ḥāfiẓ of Baghdad. He heard hadith from Khalaf ibn Hishām, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, and others. Among those who narrated from him were al-Khuṭabī and al-Ṭūmārī. He was difficult to approach for transmission except by those who kept constant company with him, yet he possessed sound knowledge of historical reports, genealogy, poetry, and the names of narrators, and he inclined toward the Iraqi school in jurisprudence. He died at the age of seventy-eight. Al-Dāraquṭnī (3) said of him, “He is not strong.”
ʿImārah ibn Wathīmah ibn Mūsā, Abū Rifāʿah al-Fārisī (4), author of “al-Tārīkh,” arranged annalistically. Born in Egypt, he narrated from Abū Ṣāliḥ, the scribe of al-Layth, and others.
ʿAmr ibn al-Layth al-Ṣaffā (5), one of the great rulers. He was killed in prison shortly after al-Muktafī arrived in Baghdad.
[Then began] the year 290 AH
In this year: Yaḥyā ibn Zakrawayh ibn Mahruwayh, Abū al-Qāsim the Qarmatian—known as al-Shaykh—advanced with massed contingents of Qarmatians and wrought havoc in the environs of al-Raqqa. The caliph therefore dispatched against him a large army of roughly ten thousand cavalry.