—forsook the unbelievers. A great many of them were killed, and a number of the Rus were taken prisoner, among them the al-Dumastuq’s son-in-law as well as his grandson.

In this same year the people were afflicted with many illnesses—fevers and severe throat pains.

Also in this year the noble prince Nūḥ ibn Naṣr al-Sāmānī, ruler of Khurasan and Transoxiana, passed away; authority then passed to his son ʿAbd al-Malik.

[Among the notable persons who died this year]

al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad (1), Abū ʿAlī al-Kātib, an Egyptian scribe.
He kept company with Abū ʿAlī al-Rūdhbārī and others, and Abū ʿUthmān al-Maghribī held him in high esteem, saying: “Abū ʿAlī the scribe is one of the sālikīn (wayfarers on the spiritual path).”

Among his sayings, as related by Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sullamī, is this:
“The fragrances of the breeze of love waft from the lovers even if they suppress them; its signs appear upon them even if they hide them; and it manifests itself upon them even if they veil it.”

He also recited:
“Whenever people’s souls secretly recall His name,
I discern it in them, though they utter no word;
Their breaths perfume them and so reveal it—
Can the secret of musk entrusted to the wind ever be concealed?” (2)

ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad [ibn Muḥammad] (3) ibn ʿUqbah ibn Hammām (4), Abū al-Ḥasan, the Shaybānī from Kufa.
He came to Baghdad, narrated there from a number of scholars, and al-Dāraquṭnī transmitted from him. He was trustworthy and upright, devoted to Qur’anic recitation and a jurist. He served as a court witness for seventy-three years, [being accepted by the judges, and he called the adhān in the Mosque of Ḥamzah al-Zayyāt for over seventy years] (5); his father had done the same before him.

Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn al-ʿAbbās (6), al-Karkhī, the man of letters.
He was learned, ascetic, and scrupulous; he completed a reading of the Qur’an every day, fasted constantly, and heard hadith from ʿAbdān and his peers.