and he guided them through ravines and wadis, where they lost their way for several days. There the people witnessed astonishing marvels and curiosities: they came upon bones of enormous size, and they saw human beings that had been turned into stone. Some even beheld a woman standing over a clay oven—baking bread in it (1)—who had been petrified, the oven itself having become rock as well. Muʾnis brought a large quantity of those objects back to the capital so that his report would be believed; Ibn al-Jawzī records the incident in his al-Muntaẓam.

It is said that they were from the people of ʿĀd or Thamūd (2).

In the same year al-Muqtadir dismissed the vizier Sulaymān ibn al-Ḥasan after one year, two months, and nine days in office, appointing Abū al-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Kalawdhānī in his place. Two months and three days later he deposed him as well and installed al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Qāsim—only to remove him soon afterwards.

That year a rift arose between the Caliph and Muʾnis al-Khādim because the Caliph assigned the office of ḥisba to a man named Muḥammad ibn Yāqūt, who was already prefect of police. Muʾnis objected, saying, “The ḥisba should be held only by judges and upright notables; this man is unfit for it.” He persisted until Muḥammad ibn Yāqūt was relieved of both the ḥisba and the police command, after which relations between the two men were repaired. Yet the estrangement flared up again in Dhū al-Ḥijja of that year and continued to grow until it culminated in the killing of al-Muqtadir billāh, as we shall relate (3).

Also within this year Thamal, governor of Ṭarsūs, dealt the Byzantines a very severe defeat: he killed a great many of them, captured about three thousand, and seized vast quantities of gold, silver, and brocade; shortly thereafter he struck them a second blow of the same magnitude. Ibn al-Dairānī the Armenian wrote to the Byzantines urging them to invade Muslim territory and promising them his help and victory. They entered with enormous hosts, and the Armenian joined them. Mufliḥ, the freedman of Yūsuf ibn Abī al-Sāj—then governor of Azerbaijan—rode out against them, accompanied by a large body of volunteer fighters. He first attacked the lands of Ibn al-Dairānī, killing roughly one hundred thousand Armenians, taking many captives, and seizing immense wealth. Ibn al-Dairānī took refuge in a fortress there and wrote to the Byzantines (4). They advanced to Simmaysāṭ and besieged it; the inhabitants sent an urgent plea to Saʿīd ibn Ḥamdān, governor of Mosul. He hastened to their aid and found the Byzantines on the verge of capturing the city. When they learned of his arrival they lifted the siege, passed by Malatya and plundered it, and then withdrew in disgrace to their own land, taking with them Ibn Nafīs, who had embraced Christianity.