Then the year 368 AH began.

In Shaʿbān of that year the Caliph al-Ṭāʾiʿ li-llāh ordered that ʿAḍud al-Dawlah’s name be mentioned on the pulpits of Baghdad immediately after the caliph’s, and that the dabādib (kettle-drums) be sounded at his gate at dawn and again after the Maghrib and ʿIshāʾ prayers.

Ibn al-Jawzī remarks: “This distinction was accorded to no one else among the Buyids. Muʿizz al-Dawlah had once asked al-Muṭīʿ li-llāh that the dabādib be beaten at his door in Baghdad, but the caliph refused him.” (1)

That same year, while ʿAḍud al-Dawlah was staying in Mosul, he seized almost all the territories that had belonged to Abū Taghlib ibn Ḥamdān—Amid, Mayyāfāriqīn, al-Raḥbah, and many other large and small towns. (2) When he resolved to return to Baghdad he appointed Abū l-Wafāʾ the chamberlain as his deputy over Mosul, then set out. He entered Baghdad on the last day of Dhū l-Qaʿdah that year; the caliph and the city’s notables went out to meet him along the road. It was a day long remembered, and Allah knows best what is correct.

Account of Qassām al-Tarrāb’s Seizure of Damascus in This Year

When Aftakīn confronted al-ʿAzīz (3) on the plain of al-Ramla, Aftakīn was routed together with al-Ḥasan the Qarmaṭian, and Aftakīn was taken captive. Al-ʿAzīz then returned to Egypt. At that point a man of Damascus named Qassām al-Tarrāb—whom Aftakīn used to favor, admit to his company, and entrust with his secrets—rose up, gained control of Damascus, and was obeyed by its inhabitants. Al-ʿAzīz’s armies came against him from Egypt and besieged the city, but accomplished nothing.

Abū Taghlib ibn Nāṣir al-Dawlah ibn Ḥamdān also arrived and blockaded him, yet was unable to enter Damascus; he withdrew disappointed to Tiberias. Long wars then erupted between him and Banū ʿAqīl and other Arab tribes, until events ended with the killing of Abū Taghlib. Accompanying him were his sister Jamīlah and his wife, the daughter of his cousin Sayf al-Dawlah. They were sent to Saʿd al-Dawlah ibn Sayf al-Dawlah in Aleppo; he kept his sister and dispatched Jamīlah to Baghdad, where she was confined in a house and large sums of money were taken from her.

As for Qassām—al-Ḥārithī by lineage, descending from Banū al-Ḥārith ibn Kaʿb of Yemen—he remained in Syria, closing its breaches and attending to its needs for many years. His council was held in the congregational mosque; the people would gather around him, and when he commanded or forbade, they carried out whatever he decreed.