Then dawned the year 347 AH.

In that year a violent earthquake struck Baghdad in the month of Nīsān (April) and affected other eastern provinces as well. Countless lives were lost, many houses collapsed, and toward the end of Nīsān and throughout Ayyār (May) vast swarms of locusts appeared, laying waste to the summer crops and fruit harvests.

The Byzantines entered Āmid and Mayyāfāriqīn, killed 1,500 people, captured the town of Sumaysāṭ, and razed it to the ground—indeed, to Allah we belong and to Him we return.

In Muḥarram of that same year, Muʿizz al-Dawla marched on Mosul and wrested it from Nāṣir al-Dawla. Nāṣir fled first to Nisibis, then to Mayyāfāriqīn. Muʿizz al-Dawla pursued him, so he made his way to his brother Sayf al-Dawla in Aleppo. Sayf al-Dawla then corresponded with Muʿizz al-Dawla to broker peace between himself and his brother Nāṣir al-Dawla. The reconciliation was concluded on the basis that Nāṣir al-Dawla would pay each year 2,900,000 dirhams (1). Muʿizz al-Dawla returned to Baghdad once the treaty had been ratified (2).

In the same year the Fatimid ruler al-Muʿizz dispatched their freedman Abū al-Ḥasan Jawhar al-Qāʾid at the head of an army, accompanied by Zīrī ibn Manād al-Sanhājī. They captured many territories in the far Maghrib until they reached the Encircling Ocean. There Jawhar ordered fish to be caught for him; they were shipped in jars of water to al-Muʿizz. Jawhar thereby won high favor, and his standing grew until he attained the rank of vizier.

Among the notable figures who died in this year

• Al-Zubayr ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid (3) ibn Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Ibrāhīm, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Asadābādhī (4).

He journeyed far and wide in pursuit of knowledge, listening to hadith in many regions. He studied under al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān, Ibn Khuzaymah, Abū Yaʿlā, and a host of others. He was a memorizer, precise and trustworthy, and he compiled works on his shaykhs (5) and on topical chapters.