In the same year:

• Reports arrived that the Byzantines were advancing on Latakia.
• Word also came that a yellow wind had swept through Ḥadīthah near Mosul, and its scorching heat caused the death of many people.
• The people were led in the pilgrimage by al-Faḍl al-Hāshimī.

Among the famous notables who died this year:

Ibn al-Rāwandī (1): Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Isḥāq, Abū ʼl-Ḥusayn, commonly known as Ibn al-Rāwandī, one of the most notorious atheist heretics—may the curse of the Lord of all worlds be upon him. His father was a Jew who outwardly embraced Islam; it is said that he tampered with the Torah just as his son opposed the Quran and disbelieved in it. Ibn al-Rāwandī authored a refutation of the Quran entitled “al-Dāmi gh” (The Pulverizer), a polemic against the Sacred Law that he called “al-Zumurrud” (2) (The Emerald), as well as “al-Tāj” (The Crown) on the same theme, “al-Farīd” (The Unique), and “Imāmat al-Mafḍūl” (The Leadership of the One of Inferior Merit).

A number of scholars rose to rebut him. Chief among them was Shaykh Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Jubbāʾī, the leading Muʿtazilite of his era, who produced an excellent (3) refutation, as did his son Abū Hāshim ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Abī ʿAlī.

Shaykh Abū ʿAlī al-Jubbāʾī said: “I read the book of the impious, ignorant, and foolish Ibn al-Rāwandī and found nothing in it but foolishness, lies, and fabrications. He produced a treatise asserting the eternity of the world, denying the Maker, vindicating the doctrine of the materialists, and refuting the people of monotheism. He composed a work attacking Muḥammad ﷺ in seventeen places, accusing him of falsehood, and he reviled the Quran. He also wrote a book for the Jews and Christians against the Muslims, arguing therein for the invalidation of Muḥammad’s prophethood ﷺ, along with other writings that clearly demonstrate his departure from Islam.” This was transmitted by Ibn al-Jawzī (4).

Shaykh Abū ʼl-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī likewise quoted in his “al-Munṭaẓam” (5) a sample of that accursed man’s slanders against the verses of revelation and the Sacred Law, and he refuted him. In truth, Ibn al-Rāwandī is too base and contemptible to warrant attention to any of his ignorance, ravings, foolishness, disgrace, deceit, fraud, or tyranny. Various tales of buffoonery (6), wantonness, and blatant blasphemy are ascribed to him—some authentically reported, others fabricated by people like him who follow the same path of unbelief while pretending otherwise.