Abū al-Khayr al-Tīnātī (1), the devout ascetic (2), was originally from the Maghrib but lived in a village called Tīnat in the district of Antioch. He was known as al-Aqṭaʿ, “the one-handed,” for his hand had been severed. He had once entered into a covenant with Allah and then broke it; while wandering in the desert engaged in worship (3) he happened to be seized along with a band of thieves, and his hand was cut off with theirs. He enjoyed remarkable spiritual states and miracles, and with his single hand he would weave palm-leaf fibers. Someone once came in on him and witnessed this; the shaykh bound him by an oath not to disclose the matter to anyone so long as he was alive, and the man honored that pledge (4).

Then came the year 344 AH. Ibn al-Jawzī says: In that year a compound malady of blood, yellow bile, and plague befell the people of Baghdad, Wāsiṭ, Iṣfahān, and al-Ahwāz, and multitudes perished—nearly a thousand souls a day (5). A great swarm of locusts also appeared, consuming the vegetables, trees, and fruits (6). In Muḥarram Muʿizz al-Dawlah invested his son Abū Manṣūr Baktiyār with authority after him, appointing him Amīr al-Umaraʾ (7).

That same year a man emerged in Ādharbayjān claiming to know the unseen. He forbade meat and everything that comes from animals. On one occasion a man hosted him and served a dish of kashkiyya prepared with fat, and he ate it. The host said to him, in the presence of those with him, “You claim to know the unseen, yet this food contains fat, which you prohibit. Why did you not know that?” Whereupon the people deserted him (8).

In this year as well many battles were fought between the Fatimid ruler al-Muʿizz and the Umayyad sovereign of al-Andalus, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nāṣir; Ibn al-Athīr has recorded them in detail (9).