what they were inventing. (117) So the truth was established and all that they were doing was rendered void. (118) Thus they were overcome on the spot and turned back humbled. (119) [al-Aʿrāf: 117–119]’”

I said to him, “You are a descendant of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ; you spoke according to the knowledge granted to you, and I spoke according to the measure of knowledge that has reached me.”

Ibn Khallikān remarks: A similar incident befell ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān when he ordered al-Ḥajjāj to build a gate in Bayt al-Maqdis and inscribe his name upon it. Al-Ḥajjāj built another gate for him, whereupon a lightning bolt struck ʿAbd al-Malik’s gate and burned it. Al-Ḥajjāj therefore wrote to him from Iraq, consoling him for what had distressed him, and said:

“O Commander of the Believers, you and I are as Allah, Exalted be He, has said:
‘And recite to them in truth the story of the two sons of Adam: when they each offered a sacrifice, and it was accepted from one of them but not accepted from the other…’ [al-Māʾidah: 27]”

Al-Manṣūr died in this same year; a severe chill struck him and he succumbed to it.

Among the notable figures who also passed away in that year were:

• Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ziyād (1) ibn Bishr ibn Dirham, Abū Saʿīd [ibn] (2) al-Aʿrābī of Basra. He settled in Mecca, became the shaykh of the Sacred Mosque, kept the company of al-Junayd ibn Muḥammad, al-Nūrī, and others, narrated hadith, and composed works for the Sufis.

• Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl (3) ibn Ṣāliḥ, Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣaffār, the grammarian. He met al-Mubarrad and was renowned for his close association with him; he was born in 247 AH. He heard hadith from al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, and others, and a number of scholars—including al-Dāraquṭnī—reported from him. Al-Dāraquṭnī said, “He fasted eighty-four Ramadans.” (4)

He too died in this year at the age of ninety-four—may Allah have mercy on him.