thousand eunuch servants, not counting the Saqāliba [together with the Persians] (1), the Byzantines, and the blacks. He also owned a residence called the House of the Tree, filled with an extraordinary quantity of furnishings and valuables, as we noted under the year 305 AH when the envoy of the Byzantine emperor arrived (2).
On one occasion al-Muqtadir boarded a ḥarrāqa (river barge) and kept urging that the meal be hurried. When it was slow in coming he said to the boatman of the barge, “Woe to you! Do you have anything we can eat?” “Yes,” the man replied, and he brought him some kid meat, coarse bread, pickles, and other items that pleased the caliph. A little later he summoned the boatman and asked, “Have you anything sweet? I never feel full until I eat something sweet.” The boatman answered, “Commander of the Faithful, our sweet is dates and kasb (ground barley meal).” “That,” said the caliph, “I cannot stomach.”
His own meal was then brought; he ate from it, the sweets were served, and he both ate and fed the boatmen. He ordered that sweets costing about two hundred dirhams be prepared every day and left aboard the ḥarrāqa: if he happened to ride in it he could eat from them, and [if he did not, they were to go to the boatman] (3). For many years the boatman collected those sweets daily, and al-Muqtadir never again set foot in either of the barges.
One of his close companions wished to have his son circumcised, so he prepared a number of awe-inspiring displays. He then asked the caliph’s mother to lend him the silver model village that had been made for al-Muqtadir’s own circumcision, so that the people might see it on this important occasion. She interceded gently with the caliph until he granted it to the man outright. The model depicted an entire village, all of it in silver: its houses and inhabitants, cattle and sheep, camels and horses, trees, crops, fruits, and rivers—everything normally found in a village, all fashioned in silver. He further directed that his banquet (4) be transferred to this man’s house and that nothing be served except fresh fish. The man therefore bought fish for three hundred dinars, and the total that al-Muqtadir spent on the banquet that day came to one thousand five hundred dinars (5).
He was extremely charitable and generous to the people of the Two Sanctuaries and to those who held stipends. He often engaged in voluntary prayers, fasting, and worship, yet he was also devoted to his pleasures, compliant with his favorite concubines (6), and fickle in appointing and dismissing officials. Such remained his way until he was killed by Muʾnis al-Khadim, as we have mentioned. He was slain at Bāb al-Shammāsiyyah with two nights remaining of Shawwāl in this year—that is, 320 AH—at the age of thirty-eight years and one month.