In the same year, Yamīn al-Dawlah Maḥmūd ibn Subuktigīn campaigned against the lands of India. He captured several great cities, carried off immense wealth, and took some of their kings prisoner—the ruler of Karāshī among them, after the latter had fled when the city fell. Maḥmūd smashed their idols, then girded that king with a belt, fastening it round his waist only after much resistance. He cut off his little finger and then released him, thereby humiliating him and displaying the magnificence of Islam and its people (1).
That year the khuṭbah in the Two Holy Sanctuaries was delivered in the name of the ʿUbaydid ruler al-Ḥākim. A new custom was introduced: whenever the preacher mentioned al-Ḥākim, all the people would rise (2) in deference to him. The same was done in Egypt (2), with the added excess of prostrating to him (2); at the mere mention of his name they would fall in prostration—those engaged in prayer and those in the marketplaces alike. May Allah curse them.
Among the notable deaths in that year was Abū Saʿd al-Ismāʿīlī (3): Ismāʿīl ibn Aḥmad ibn (4) Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl al-Jurjānī, known as al-Ismāʿīlī. He visited Baghdad while al-Dāraquṭnī was still alive and related ḥadīth from his father Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī (5), al-Aṣamm, and Ibn ʿAdī. From him narrated al-Khallāl and al-Tanūkhī. He was trustworthy, eminent, and a jurist of the Shāfiʿī school, well-versed in Arabic, generous to the people of knowledge, and possessed of piety and authority whose influence remains among his descendants in his homeland to this day.
Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī said: I heard Shaykh Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Ṭabarī say: When Abū Saʿd al-Ismāʿīlī arrived in Baghdad, the jurists convened two gatherings for him—one chaired by Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfarāyīnī and the other by Abū Muḥammad al-Bāfī. Al-Bāfī sent a message to Judge al-Muʿāfā ibn Zakariyyā al-Jarīrī, inviting him to attend the session so that it might be graced by his presence. The letter was carried by his own son, Abū al-Faḍl, and contained these two verses:
If the esteemed judge should honor his protégé and friend,
He will find him ever ready to show gratitude.
I have a need that my young son will present to him,
And for its complete fulfillment he will plead.
Al-Jarīrī replied through the shaykh’s son