with the affairs of Mosul and with Nasir ad-Dawlah ibn Hamdan. Once matters had been settled and he returned to Baghdad, the Veiled One disappeared, wandering from land to land, and nothing further ever came of his claim.
[Among the notable figures who died in this year]
Bakkar b. Ahmad (1) b. Bakkar b. Bunan b. Bakkar b. Ziyad b. Drastawayh, Abu ʿIsa (2), the Qur’an reciter.
He transmitted hadith from ʿAbd Allah b. Ahmad, and Abu al-Hasan al-Hammami narrated from him. He was reliable and had taught the Qur’an for more than sixty years (may Allah have mercy on him). He died in Rabiʿ al-Awwal of this year, having passed the age of seventy and come close to eighty (3), and was buried in the Khayzuran cemetery beside the grave of Abu Hanifah (may Allah have mercy on him).
Abu Ishaq al-Hujaymi (4): He was born in 250 AH and heard hadith. Whenever he was asked to narrate he would swear that he would not do so until he had lived beyond one hundred years. Allah honoured his oath: he outlived that span and then began to teach. He died this year at the age of one hundred and three (may Allah have mercy on him).
[Then the year 354 AH began]
On the tenth of Muharram the Shiʿah held mourning ceremonies as in the two previous years: the markets were closed, rough black cloth was hung up, and unveiled, dishevelled women went out through the lanes and marketplaces wailing and slapping their faces. This is an affected display that benefits neither religion nor worldly life. Had it been a praiseworthy practice, the earliest and best generations of this community would have been the first to observe it—for if it were good, they would have preceded us in it. The people of the Sunnah follow; they do not innovate.
The Sunnis then gained the upper hand over the Rawafid: they raided the Yiratha Mosque, the very nest of the Rawafid, and killed some of the guards who were inside.
In that same year, in the month of Rajab, the Byzantine emperor advanced with vast armies to al-Massisa (Mopsuestia). He took it by force, slaughtered great numbers of its inhabitants, and carried the rest—almost two hundred thousand souls—off as captives. To Allah we belong and to Him we return. He then proceeded to Tarsus; its people asked him for safe-conduct and he granted it, yet ordered them to evacuate the city. He turned the congregational mosque into a stable for his horses, burned the minbar, and removed its lamps to the churches of his realm. Some of the townsfolk embraced Christianity along with him—may Allah curse him—and the people of