Then the year 342 AH began.

That year Sayf al-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān, lord of Aleppo, marched into Byzantine territory, killed great numbers of their forces, took others captive, seized considerable booty, and returned safe and triumphant.

In the same year dissension broke out among the pilgrims in Mecca. Fighting erupted between the troops of Ibn Ṭughj and those of Muʿizz al-Dawlah, and the Iraqis defeated them. Then, once the Hajj was over, they clashed again (1), and the Iraqis prevailed a second time.

Many battles and grave troubles also took place between Rukn al-Dawlah and the Khurasānīs and Sāmānids, the details of which Ibn al-Athīr has set out at length in his al-Kāmil (2).

Among the notable figures who died this year was

ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Fahm (3), Abū al-Qāsim al-Tanūkhī, the grandfather of the judge Abū al-Qāsim al-Tanūkhī and the teacher of the famous preacher al-Khaṭīb.

He was born in Antioch and later came to Baghdad, where he studied jurisprudence in the school of Abū Ḥanīfah. He was versed in kalām in the Muʿtazilī fashion, knowledgeable in astrology, a composer of poetry, and served as judge in Ahwāz and elsewhere. He heard hadith from al-Baghawī and others.

Endowed with keen intelligence, he once, at the age of fifteen, memorized in a single night a poem of the poet Diʿbil consisting of six hundred verses. The next morning he recited it to his father, who rose, embraced him, kissed him between the eyes, and said, “My son, tell no one of this, lest the evil eye befall you.” (5)