Al-Khaṭīb said: “He was trustworthy, reliable, and highly knowledgeable, having collected the ḥadiths of al-Layth and Ibn Lahayʿah, and he authored many books on zuhd (ascetic devotion). (1)

He passed away in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of this year at the age of eighty-seven.

Then the year 339 AH began.

In that blessed year, during Dhū al-Qaʿdah, the Makkan Black Stone was returned to its place. The Qarmaṭians had seized it in 317 AH, as we have mentioned, slaughtering whatever pilgrims they found that year around the sacred Kaʿbah. Their ruler at the time was Abū Ṭāhir Sulaymān ibn Abī Saʿīd al-Ḥasan al-Jannābī—may Allah curse him. When that calamity struck, the Muslims were profoundly distressed. The Turkish amīr Bajkam offered them fifty thousand dinars to restore it, but they refused and said, “We took it by command, and we shall not return it except by the command of the one who ordered us to take it.”

In the present year they carried it to Kūfah and hung it on the seventh pillar of its congregational mosque so that the people might behold it. Abū Ṭāhir’s brother affixed a note that read: “We took this Stone by command, and we have returned it by the command of the one who ordered us to seize it, so that the people’s ḥajj and rites may be completed.” They then dispatched it to Mecca without exacting anything, mounted on a single qaʿūd (3) camel, and it arrived in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of this year—praise and gratitude belong to Allah. It had remained in their hands for twenty-two years, and the Muslims rejoiced mightily at its return. More than one authority reports that when the Qarmaṭians first carried it off they placed it upon several camels, each of which collapsed beneath it and whose humps became ulcerated. (4) When they sent it back, however, one camel bore it alone without suffering harm—praise and gratitude belong to Allah.

That same year Sayf al-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān marched with a large force—about thirty thousand men—into Byzantine territory. He penetrated deep within, captured fortresses, slew multitudes, took vast numbers prisoner, and seized abundant booty. On his return, the Byzantines blocked the pass by which he meant to withdraw, killed most of those with him, captured the remainder, and recovered what he had taken from them. Sayf al-Dawlah escaped with only a few of his companions. Truly we belong to Allah and to Him we shall return.

In this year the vizier Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṣaymarī died, whereupon Muʿizz al-Dawlah appointed Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Muhallabī (5) in his place in Jumādā al-Ūlā. The power of ʿImrān ibn Shāhīn swelled yet further, the situation with him became even more serious, and [Muʿizz al-Dawlah] sent to him—