He came to Baghdad and learned the sunnah from Zakariyya ibn Yaḥyā al-Sāji, while he studied jurisprudence under Ibn Surayj. We have already provided his biography in “Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah.” Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān also records him in “al-Wafayāt,” noting that he used to sit in the study-circle of Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Marwazī. Previously he had been a Muʿtazilī, but he repented of that in Basra from the pulpit, after which he exposed their scandals and disgraceful beliefs. Among the works attributed to him are al-Mujaz and others (1).

It is related that Ibn Ḥazm produced fifty-five separate writings. It is also said that his annual income amounted to seventeen thousand dirhams (2); that he was among the most humorous of people; that he was born in 270 AH, though some say 260 AH; and that he died in this very year—others say in 330 AH (3), and others in the early thirties. Allah knows best.

Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl ibn ʿAbd Allāh (4), Abū Dharr al-Tamīmī, was the leading notable of Jurjān. He heard a great many ḥadith, followed the school of al-Shāfiʿī, and his house was a gathering-place for scholars. He displayed abundant generosity toward the students of knowledge of his era (5).

Hārūn ibn al-Muqtadir (6), the brother of Caliph al-Rāḍī, died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of this year. His brother grieved for him and ordered Bakhtīshūʿ ibn Yaḥyā (7) the physician-perfumer to be exiled to al-Anbār because he was suspected of malpractice in treating him; later the Caliph’s mother interceded on his behalf.

Then the year 325 AH began. In its month of Muḥarram, Caliph al-Rāḍī and the commander of commanders, Muḥammad ibn Rāʾiq, set out from Baghdad toward Wāsiṭ to fight Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Barīdī, deputy of Ahwāz, who had become overbearing there and withheld the land tax. When Ibn Rāʾiq reached Wāsiṭ, the Ḥajarīyya rose against him and fought him; he loosed Bujkum upon them and crushed them. Their remnants fled back to Baghdad, where they were met by Luʾluʾ, commander