In this same year al-Ḥakam, whose honorific was al-Mustanṣir biʾllāh, son of al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān the Umayyad, passed away. He was counted among the finest of kings and scholars,(1) thoroughly versed in fiqh, juristic disputation, and history, fond of scholars and generous toward them. He died at the age of sixty-three years and seven months, having held the caliphate for fifteen years and five months. Authority then devolved upon his son Hishām, a boy of ten, who received the honorific al-Muʾayyad biʾllāh. During his days factions contended with him and the populace grew turbulent; he was imprisoned for a while, then released and restored to the caliphate. The burden of governance was borne by his chamberlain(2) al-Manṣūr Abū ʿĀmir Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿĀmir al-Maʿāfirī(3) and by the latter’s two sons, al-Muẓaffar and al-Nāṣir. They ruled the subjects well, dealt justly with them, and campaigned against the enemy, so that conditions remained steady for nearly twenty-six years. Ibn al-Athīr reproduces here a section of their history and elaborates upon it at length.(4)

In the same year the sovereignty of Aleppo reverted to Abū al-Maʿālī Sharīf ibn Sayf al-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān. When his father died and he succeeded him, their freedman Qarquwayh seized control, forcing him to flee in fear. He made his way to his mother in Mayyāfāriqīn in the year 357 AH, then came and settled in Ḥamāh. The Byzantines had demolished Ḥimṣ, so he strove to rebuild and restore it and took up residence there. Qarquwayh, meanwhile, appointed over Aleppo a client named Bakjūr; Bakjūr overpowered him and imprisoned his master in the citadel for almost six years. The people of Aleppo wrote to Abū al-Maʿālī, who was in Ḥimṣ, asking him to come to them. He marched, besieged Aleppo for four months, and captured it, though the citadel held out, for Bakjūr had fortified himself within. They finally concluded a pact: Abū al-Maʿālī guaranteed his safety and appointed him deputy in Ḥimṣ, which Bakjūr accepted. Later on,(5) Bakjūr moved to the deputyship of Damascus, and the farm on the western outskirts of Damascus known as al-Qaṣr al-Bakjūrī is attributed to him. Allah, exalted is He, knows best.

The Beginning of the Reign of Subuktikīn, father of Maḥmūd, lord of Ghazna.

This Subuktikīn had been the client of the amir Abū Isḥāq ibn Alptegīn,(6) commander of the Ghazna army and its territories