Ibn Khallikān relates that he served as the boon companion of the vizier al-Muhallabī, and that he later presented himself to Sayf al-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān, who honored him and treated him generously. Ibn Khallikān also cites a number of this man’s fine poems, among them the following verses on wine:

A wine wrought from the very sun—
It shows itself to you in a goblet of daylight;
It is air, yet somehow congealed,
And water, yet it does not flow.
It is as though the cup-bearer, tilting it with his right hand
To pour the draught—or with his left—
Were clad in a robe of jasmine,
Whose single sleeve is of pomegranate bloom. (1)

Muhammad ibn Ibrāhīm (2) ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Khallāq, Abū al-Faraj al-Baghdādī, a Shāfiʿī jurist known as Ibn Sukkara. He settled in Egypt, taught ḥadīth there, and was heard by Abū al-Fatḥ ibn Masrūr (3), who remarked that he showed a measure of leniency (4).

Muhammad ibn Mūsā ibn Yaʿqūb (5) ibn al-Maʾmūn ibn Hārūn al-Rashīd, Abū Bakr, assumed the governorship of Mecca in 268 AH. He later came to Egypt and there related Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ on the authority of ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Baghawī. Reliable and trustworthy, he died in Egypt in Dhū al-Ḥijjah of this same year.

[Then the year 343 AH began.]

In that year a battle took place between Sayf al-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān and the al-Dumastuq (6). A great many of the al-Dumastuq’s troops were killed and a number of the leading officers among his patricians were captured—praise be to Allah. Among the slain was Constantine, the son of the al-Dumastuq. Sayf al-Dawlah also took more captives and seized considerable booty; this occurred in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year. The al-Dumastuq then mustered a large force, and they met Sayf al-Dawlah again in Shaʿbān. Terrible battles and fierce fighting followed, but the advantage remained with the Muslims, and Allah—