al-Dārakī (1). He produced works on uṣūl al-fiqh—the principles of jurisprudence—and on its detailed rulings. Students used to journey to him in Baghdad, where he lectured and authored a large body of writings. He—may Allah Most High have mercy on him and be pleased with him—died in Jumādā al-Ūlā of this same year.

[Then the year 360 AH began]

On the tenth of Muḥarram the Rāfiḍīs repeated, as was their custom, their forbidden innovation.

In Dhū al-Qaʿdah the Qarmaṭians captured Damascus and killed its deputy governor, Jaʿfar ibn Falāḥ (2), who was serving on behalf of al-Muʿizz the Fatimid. The Qarmaṭian leader and amīr was al-Ḥasan (3) ibn Aḥmad ibn Bahrām, whom ʿIzz al-Dawla in Baghdad had supplied with ample weapons and equipment. They then marched on Ramla and took it; the Maghāribah who were inside withdrew to Jaffa and fortified themselves there, so the Qarmaṭians left a force to besiege the town and moved on toward Egypt with a large host of Bedouins together with Ikhshidid and Kāfūrid troops. Reaching ʿAyn Shams, they fought a fierce battle with Jawhar’s army, and the victory went to the Qarmaṭians, who placed the Maghāribah under a severe siege. On one occasion the Maghāribah launched a charge against the Qarmaṭians’ right wing and routed it, whereupon the Qarmaṭians withdrew to Syria and tightened their blockade of Jaffa. Jawhar sent fifteen supply ships to his men, but the Qarmaṭian vessels seized all but two, which the Franks captured. Many other incidents followed.

Some verses by al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Bahrām, the Qarmaṭian commander:
“Men of the West claim that I have feared them (4)—
then let my blood indeed be spilled among them!
O Egypt, if I do not drench your earth with blood
that slakes your soil, may the Nile never quench my thirst.”

During this same year Abū Taghlib ibn Ḥamdān married the three-year-old daughter of Bakhtiyār ʿIzz al-Dawla, with a dower of one hundred thousand dinars; the marriage contract was concluded in Ṣafar.

That year Muʾayyad al-Dawla ibn Rukn al-Dawla appointed the Ṣāḥib, Abū al-Qāsim ibn ʿAbbād, as vizier; he set all his affairs in order and administered the state with skill.

In that year as well the call to prayer in Damascus and the rest of Syria included the phrase ḥayya ʿalā khayri l-ʿamal (“Come to the best of deeds”).