Ibn al-Jawzi relates:

In Jumada al-Akhirah, on the night of its seventh day, the weather turned bitterly cold with thunder and lightning, and the Green Dome of al-Manṣūr’s palace came crashing down. That dome had been the crown of Baghdad, the city’s most famous landmark and one of the Abbasids’ greatest monuments, erected at the very beginning of their rule; one hundred and eighty-seven years elapsed between its construction and its fall. (1)

He continues: During both Tishrīns and both Kānūns of that same year no rain fell on Baghdad save for a single shower that did not even moisten the dust. Prices therefore soared until a kur of grain sold for one hundred and thirty dinars, and pestilence spread so widely that several corpses would be buried together in one grave without washing or funeral prayer. Real estate and household goods were sold for next to nothing; with a single dirham one could buy what had once cost a dinar. (2)

A woman then saw the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—in her sleep, commanding her to have the people go out into the open country and perform the rain-prayer (ṣalāt al-istisqāʾ). The caliph ordered that this be carried out; the people prayed and implored, whereupon the rains descended. The Euphrates rose to a level never seen before: al-ʿAbbāsiyyah was submerged, water entered the streets of Baghdad, and both the Old and the New Bridges collapsed. (3)

That year Kurdish raiders attacked a caravan coming from Khurasan and seized goods valued at three million dinars, most of which belonged to Bujkam the Turk. (4)

The pilgrims set out for the Hajj that year but turned back midway because an ʿAlid had appeared in the Prophet’s City, summoned people to support him, and rebelled against the authorities. (5)

Among the notable deaths of the year was the jurist Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Nawmarad (6)(7), one of Ibn Surayj’s chief students. He had just left the bathhouse [ilā khārijihi] (to the outside of it) when the bathhouse [al-ḥammām] collapsed upon him, and he died instantly. May Allah have mercy on him. (8)