—his left hand—then clamp it with his teeth; he would pull again with the left, bite down on the rope, and so draw up the water. (1)
He endured severe hardship and anguish, and he died (2) in that prison, alone. He was buried there, after which his family asked that his body be moved, so he was re-interred in his own house, and later transferred once more to another place.
Several uncanny coincidences marked his life: he held the vizierate three times and was dismissed three times; he served three caliphs; he was buried three times; and he undertook three journeys—twice in exile and once, during his vizierate, to Mosul, as mentioned above. (3)
In this same year Bujkam entered Baghdad, and al-Radi invested him with the office of amir al-umara (Commander of Commanders) in place of Ibn Raʾiq. Bujkam had originally been one of the mamluks of Abu ʿAli al-ʿArid (4), the vizier of Makān ibn Kali the Daylamite; al-ʿArid requested him as a gift from the vizier, who granted him. Bujkam later left Makān and joined Mardawij, and he was among those who killed Mardawij in the bathhouse, as noted above. (5) He took up residence in the house of Munis the Eunuch, and his authority grew enormously. Ibn Raʾiq withdrew, his time in power having lasted one year, ten months, and sixteen days.
That year ʿImad al-Dawla ibn Buwayh sent his brother Muʿizz al-Dawla, who seized the province of Ahwaz on behalf of Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Buraydi, wresting it from Bujkam’s control and restoring it to him.
In the same year Lashkari, one of the commanders of Washmgir the Daylamite, conquered the land of Adharbayjan, taking it from Rustam ibn Ibrahim the Kurd, a follower of Ibn Abi al-Saj, after long and bitter fighting.
Also this year the Qarmati movement fell into utter disarray: they killed one another, and because of their mutual slaughter they desisted from spreading further corruption on earth. They remained confined to their town of Hajar, not seeking to move elsewhere—praise and thanks be to Allah.
[Among those who died this year were] Ahmad ibn Ziyad (6) ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Lakhmi al-Andalusi.