[Then the year 301 of the Prophetic Hijrah began.]

In that year al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥamdān (1) led the ṣāʾifa, the summer campaign, capturing many fortresses in Byzantine territory and killing multitudes beyond counting. (2)

That same year al-Muqtadir removed Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allah (3) from the vizierate and appointed ʿĪsā [ibn ʿAlī] (4) in his place. The latter proved to be one of the finest viziers—most devoted to justice, benevolence, and adherence to the truth.

During that year hemorrhagic diseases became widespread in Baghdad in Tammūz and Āb (July and August), and a vast number of its inhabitants died.

In the same year gifts from the ruler of ʿUmān arrived, among them a white parrot (5) and a black gazelle.

In Shaʿbān of that year al-Muqtadir rode on horseback to Bāb al-Shammāsiyya (6) and then proceeded down to his residence on the Tigris; it was the first time he rode out openly before the general populace.

That year the vizier ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā sought al-Muqtadir’s permission to correspond with the head of the Qarmaṭians, Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan ibn Bahrām al-Jannābī, and was granted leave. He therefore wrote him a lengthy letter, summoning him to obedience and compliance, rebuking him for his followers’ abandonment of the prayers and the payment of zakāt, their perpetration of outrages, their censure of those who remember Allah, glorify Him, and praise Him, their mockery of religion, and their enslavement of free women. He also threatened him with war and intimidation.

While the letter was still on its way, Abū Saʿīd was killed before it reached him—slain by some of his own servants. He had designated his son Saʿīd as his successor, but his brother Abū Ṭāhir Sulaymān ibn Abī Saʿīd (7) overpowered him and took control.

When the Qarmaṭians read the vizier’s letter, they replied to the following effect: “Nothing of what you have attributed to us has reached you except through those who malign us. If the caliph himself accuses us of disbelief in Allah, then how can he summon us to obey and submit to him?”