He narrated from al-Mubarrad and Thaʿlab, was deemed reliable, and authored highly beneficial works on the Qurʾānic sciences.

Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Yaḥyā (1), Abū al-Ṭayyib the grammarian, known as Ibn al-Washshāʾ, produced fine compositions on historical reports (2). He transmitted ḥadīth from al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāma, al-Mubarrad, Thaʿlab, and others.

Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Hārūn (3), Abū Bakr al-ʿAskarī, a jurist of the school of Abū Thawr, related ḥadīth from al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah and ʿAbbās al-Dūrī; from him narrated al-Dāraquṭnī, al-Ājurī, and others.

[Then came the year 326 AH.]

During it a letter arrived from the Byzantine emperor to the Caliph al-Rāḍī, written in Greek with an Arabic explanation: the Greek text in gold, the Arabic in silver. Its purport was a request for a truce between them, and it was accompanied by many splendid gifts and rarities. The Caliph granted the request, and six thousand Muslim captives—men and women—were ransomed on the river al-Badhandun (4).

In the same year the vizier Abū al-Fatḥ ibn al-Furāt left Baghdad for Syria and resigned the vizierate. Abū ʿAlī ibn Muqlah succeeded him, but his tenure was exceedingly weak, for he possessed no real authority while Ibn Rāʾiq held power. He asked Ibn Rāʾiq to cede his estates to him, but Ibn Rāʾiq kept stalling. Ibn Muqlah therefore wrote to Bujkam, enticing him with the prospect of taking Baghdad in place of Ibn Rāʾiq, and he also wrote to the Caliph requesting that Muḥammad ibn Rāʾiq and Ibn Muqatil be handed over to him, offering a guarantee of two million dinars. When this reached Ibn Rāʾiq he seized him and cut off his hand, saying, “This man has spread corruption in the land.”

He then kept assuring the Caliph that, even with his hand amputated, he could still serve as vizier—for he would strap the pen to the stump of his right hand and write with it. Later Ibn Rāʾiq learned that he had written to Bujkam as mentioned above and was invoking curses upon him (5). So Ibn Rāʾiq again seized him, cut out his tongue, and confined him in a cramped cell with no one to serve him. He had to draw his own water, grasping the rope of the well with his hand.