among them Tarsus, Adana, ʿAyn Zarbah, al-Maṣṣīṣah, and other towns besides. He slaughtered multitudes whose number is known only to Allah, and carried off into slavery Muslim men and women in numbers known only to their Creator. This accursed man is the one who sent that poem to al-Muṭīʿ li-llah; we reproduced it at the end of the preceding section under the year 355 AH. Later the jurist and Imām Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm al-Ẓāhirī took up the task of refuting it and produced a comprehensive and decisive reply—may Allah reward him for what he did for Islam (1).
In the same year ʿIzz al-Dawlah, ruler of Baghdad, attempted to besiege ʿImrān ibn Shāhīn but failed; he therefore made peace with him and returned to Baghdad.
That year Qurquwayh and Abū al-Maʿālī reached a settlement. Qurquwayh had the Friday khuṭbah delivered in Abū al-Maʿālī’s name in Aleppo, while both men had it proclaimed in their two provinces on behalf of al-Muʿizz the Fatimid—in Aleppo and Ḥimṣ. In Mecca the khuṭbah was given for al-Muṭīʿ li-llah—and for the Qarmaṭians as well—whereas in Medina it was delivered for al-Muʿizz the Fatimid. Abū Aḥmad al-Mūsawī delivered the khuṭbah in its outskirts for al-Muṭīʿ; Allah knows best.
[Among the notables who died in this year]
Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan (2) ibn Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Abū ʿAlī, known as Ibn al-Ṣawwāf. He transmitted ḥadith from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad and his contemporaries, and a great many—including al-Dāraquṭnī—narrated from him. Al-Dāraquṭnī said: “My eyes have never beheld his equal in scrupulousness and piety.” He lived to the age of eighty-nine—may Allah have mercy on him.
Muḥārib ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥārib (3), Abū al-ʿAlāʾ—the judge and Shāfiʿī jurist, a descendant of Muḥārib ibn Dithār (4). He was trustworthy, learned, and distinguished, and narrated ḥadith from Jaʿfar al-Firyābī and others.
Abū al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad (5), known as Ibn al-Qaṭṭān, was one of the foremost authorities of the Shāfiʿī school. He first studied under Ibn Surayj, then under Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Marwazī, and after the death of Abū al-Qāsim became the sole head of the school.