and the office of judge was entrusted instead to Abū Bishr ʿUmar ibn Aktham without any stipend; furthermore, the annual payment that Ibn Abī ash-Shawārib had been obliged to remit was cancelled—all praise is due to Allah.

In Dhū al-Ḥijjah the people went out to perform the rain-prayer (istisqāʾ) because the showers had been long delayed; this occurred in the month of Kanun ath-Thānī (January).

Ibn al-Jawzī relates in al-Muntaẓam, citing the historian Thābit ibn Sinān:

“A number of trustworthy residents of Mosul told me that in the year 352 AH one of the Armenian patricians sent to Nāṣir ad-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān two Armenian men who were joined together. They were twenty-five years old, both bearded, and were accompanied by their father. Each possessed a navel, an abdomen, and a stomach of his own, and their feelings of hunger did not coincide. One of them was inclined toward women, while the other was attracted to boys. Frequent quarrels broke out between them; at times one would swear an oath not to speak to the other and would keep it for days before they made peace.

Nāṣir ad-Dawlah presented them with two thousand dirhams, clothed them in robes of honour, and invited them to embrace Islam; it is said that they accepted. He considered sending them to Baghdad so that the populace might see them, but then abandoned the idea. They returned with their father to their homeland, where one of them fell ill and died, his body giving off a foul odour, while the other—being attached to him at the flanks—could not free himself. Earlier, Nāṣir ad-Dawlah had wanted to separate them and had assembled physicians for that purpose, but they had found it impossible. When the first died, their father was bewildered; soon after, the second also fell ill, distressed by the stench of his brother, and died of grief. Both were buried together in a single grave (1).”

Among the notable figures who died this year was ʿUmar ibn Aktham (2) ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥayyān (3) ibn Bishr—Abū Bishr al-Asadī, the Shāfiʿī jurist. He was born in the year 284 AH (4). During the caliphate of al-Muṭīʿ he served as judge on behalf of Abū as-Sāʾib ʿUtbah ibn ʿUbayd Allah, and was later appointed Chief Judge (Qāḍī al-Quḍāt). Apart from Abū as-Sāʾib, he was the first Shāfiʿī to attain that office. His conduct on the bench was commendable. He passed away in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the present year (5).