Shaghab, the mother of the Commander of the Faithful al-Muqtadir Billah, known as al-Sayyida (1), drew an annual income of one million dinars from her estates. Yet she gave away even more than that in charity to the pilgrims, providing them with drinks, provisions, and physicians who accompanied them, and (2) easing their routes and watering places. During her son’s caliphate she enjoyed the height of dignity, authority, and influence. When he was killed she was already ill, and his death (3) only compounded her sickness.
When al-Qahir finally secured the caliphate—he was the son of her husband al-Muʿtaḍid and the brother of her own son al-Muqtadir (4); she had nursed him after his mother’s death and had once rescued him from her son when Munis had pledged allegiance to him, though that came to nothing—al-Qahir (5) punished her with a truly savage punishment. He would hang her by one leg with her head downward so that, when she urinated, it ran over her face, all to make her confess to the riches he imagined she possessed. He found nothing with her except her clothes and the gold ornaments and jewellery stored in her chests, worth one hundred and thirty thousand dinars. Everything that reached her she spent in charity, and she had endowed a large amount as waqf (charitable endowment). She did, however, own some property; he ordered it sold and summoned witnesses to attest that she had authorised its sale. The witnesses refused to testify until the curtain was lifted and they could see her, so the screen was removed with the Caliph’s permission.
They said to her, “Are you Shaghab, the former concubine of al-Muʿtaḍid and the mother of Jaʿfar al-Muqtadir?” She wept long and said, “Yes.” They recorded her description: an old woman, dark-skinned, with a narrow forehead. The witnesses wept and reflected on the turns of time and the changes of fortune (6): that this world is an abode of trial—its promised hopes never match its hidden fears, its sunrise is never safe from eclipse, and whoever leans upon it is burned by its fire.
She died in Jumada al-Awwal of this year and was buried in al-Rusafa.
Abd al-Salam ibn Muhammad (7) ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhab ibn Salam ibn Khalid ibn Humran ibn Aban, a client of ʿUthman ibn ʿAffan, is Abu Hashim ibn Abi ʿAli al-Jubbaʾi, the theologian son of a theologian, a Muʿtazilite born of a Muʿtazilite. The Bahshamiyyah (8) branch of the Muʿtazila is ascribed to him, and, like his father before him, he authored works on Muʿtazilite doctrine.
He was born in 247 AH and died in Shaʿban of this year.
Judge Ibn Khallikan said: “He had a son named Abu ʿAli who once entered upon al-Ṣahib ibn …”