He once saw the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—in a dream and said to him, “O Messenger of Allah, which of the two is more firmly grounded in hadith, Mansur or al-A‘mash?” The Prophet replied, “Mansur (1).”

Nevertheless, he was censured for tadlis; al-Daraqutni said of him, “He indulges in much tadlis, narrating what he did not hear, and at times he even stole some hadith.”

[Then came the year 313 AH]

Ibn al-Jawzi relates: “On the night before the last night of Muharram a meteor shot from the southern horizon toward the north before sunset, the whole world was lit up by it, and a sound like a powerful peal of thunder was heard (2).

“In Safar of that same year (3) news reached the caliph al-Muqtadir Billah that a group of the Rafidites were gathering in the Baratha Mosque, reviling the Companions, neglecting the Friday prayer, corresponding with the Qaramita, calling people to Muhammad ibn Isma‘il—who had appeared between Kufah and Baghdad—and claiming he was the Mahdi while disavowing al-Muqtadir and all who followed him. The caliph ordered precautionary measures against them and sought a legal opinion concerning that mosque. The scholars ruled that it was a ‘mosque of harm’ (masjid dirar) and should be demolished just as the original Masjid Dirar had been demolished (4). Those of them who could be seized were given a severe beating, they were publicly denounced, and the caliph commanded that the mosque be razed in accordance with the scholars’ verdict. Nāzūk carried out the demolition, and the vizier al-Khāqānī had the site turned into a cemetery in which a number of the dead were buried.

“In Dhu al-Qa‘dah the people set out for the pilgrimage, but Abū Tāhir Sulaymān ibn Abī Sa‘id al-Jannābī, the Qarmatian—may Allah curse them both—intercepted them, so most of the pilgrims returned to their homelands and were unable to perform Hajj that year. It is said that some of them sought safe-conduct from him to proceed, and he granted it. The caliph’s troops fought him, but it had no effect on account of his defiance and the fierce valor of his followers. The people of Baghdad were alarmed; the inhabitants of the western quarter moved to the eastern quarter out of fear of the Qaramita. The Qarmatian entered Kufah and remained there for six days (5), taking from its wealth (6) whatever he pleased.