of Muslim captives from the hands of the unbelievers is of greater benefit to the people than leaving that cloth in that church.” The caliph therefore ordered that the cloth be sent to them and that the prisoners be freed from their hands.⦗1⦘

Al-Ṣūlī relates: News came that the Qarmatian had been blessed with a newborn child, so Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Buraydī presented him with splendid gifts, among them a cradle of gold studded with jewels.⦗2⦘

Rafidite sympathies became widespread in Baghdad, whereupon a proclamation was made: “Whoever speaks ill of any of the Companions is absolved of the community’s covenant.”

The caliph sent robes of honor to ʿImād al-Dawla ibn Būyah; he accepted them and put them on in the presence of the judges and the leading citizens.

In that same year the Blessed Naṣr ibn Aḥmad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Sāmānī, ruler of Khurasan and Transoxiana, died. He had suffered from consumption for a year and a month before his death, after which he set aside in his residence a room he called “the House of Worship.” There he would don clean garments, walk to it barefoot, pray, supplicate, fast frequently, and avoid every wrongdoing until he passed away—may Allah have mercy on him. His son Nūḥ ibn Naṣr al-Sāmānī then assumed power in Shaʿbān of this year and was given the title “al-Amīr al-Ḥamīd.” He executed Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Nasafī al-Bardhī—who had slandered him—and crucified him.

Among the notable deaths of the year was Sinān ibn Thābit ibn Qurra⦗3⦘, the Sabean⦗4⦘ known as Abū Saʿīd the physician. He embraced Islam at the hands of al-Qāhir bi-llāh, though neither his son nor any member of his household followed him. Eminent in medicine and many other sciences, he died in Dhū al-Qaʿda of this year from dysentery⦗5⦘; his expertise availed him nothing when death came.

How apt are the verses one poet composed on this very point:

Say to him who brews the draught with his own hand:
“Can you avert what is decreed when it descends upon you?”⦗6⦘
The healer has died, the healed as well,
The mixer of the potion with his hand—and the one who bought it.