—to Mūnis al-Khādim, asking him to bring Abu Bakr ibn al-Adami, the Qur’an reciter (1). That reciter had stood before him when he was first imprisoned and, in 271 AH (2), had publicly recited the verse, “And such is the seizure of your Lord when He seizes the towns while they are committing wrong; indeed, His seizure is painful and severe” [Hud 11:102].
The reciter, fearing his power, begged to be excused by Mūnis al-Khādim, but Mūnis said, “Go, and I shall share in the reward with you.” When the reciter entered, he chanted in his presence: “The king said, ‘Bring him to me so that I may single him out for myself.’ And when he had spoken with him, he said, ‘Indeed, today you are established in our presence, trusted’” [Yusuf 12:54].
He replied, “Rather, I would like you to recite those ten verses you recited when my sentence was proclaimed (3): ‘And such is the seizure of your Lord when He seizes the towns while they are committing wrong’ [Hud 11:102], for that was the cause of my repentance (4) to Allah—exalted is He—and it happened at your hands.” He then ordered a generous sum of money for him and treated him kindly.
That same year the vizier ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā fell ill. Hārūn, son of al-Muqtadir, came to visit him (5). The vizier had the road cleared for him; when Hārūn drew near the house, he forced himself to rise, came out to meet him, and conveyed the Caliph’s greetings. Mūnis al-Khādim accompanied him. News then arrived that the Caliph himself intended to visit, so the vizier asked to be excused by Mūnis, mounted with great effort, and went to greet the Caliph so as not to oblige him to ride to the vizier’s residence.
In this same year the stewardess Umm Mūsā and her associates were arrested, and the amount taken from her and delivered to the public treasury totalled one million dinars.
On Thursday, with ten days remaining in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, al-Muqtadir appointed Abū al-Ḥusayn ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Shaybānī, known as Ibn al-Ushnānī (6)—a prominent ḥadith scholar and jurist—as chief judge, but he was dismissed after three days; previously he had served as the market inspector in Baghdad.
That year Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad was removed from command of the Baghdad police; the post was given to Nāzūk, upon whom a robe of honour was bestowed.
In Jumādā al-Ākhira a comet appeared whose tail was two cubits long, visible in the constellation of Virgo.
During that year, in Shaʿbān, gifts arrived from the Egyptian deputy al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Mādharaʾī (7); among them were a she-mule with her foal (8) and a slave-boy whose tongue reached the tip of his nose.