—the Egyptian, author of the four-volume astronomical handbook al-Zīj al-Ḥākimī. His father was counted among the foremost ḥadith masters (1) and produced a useful history of Egypt to which scholars still have recourse.

As for the son himself, he devoted his life to astronomy and attained a fine standing [min shaʾwihi] (2) in it. He was especially meticulous in observational work. Yet, for all his learning, he was a guileless man of straitened means: his clothes were shabby; he was tall, winding his turban round a long ṭarṭūr (conical cap), throwing a mantle over it, and riding about on a donkey—anyone who saw him could not help but laugh. He would enter the court of al-Ḥākim, the ruler of Egypt, who treated him with honour and would recount tales of his simplicity that showed how little heed he paid to his own affairs. He was nonetheless an upright legal witness and composed good poetry, of which Ibn Khallikān cites the following in al-Wafayāt:

I charge the rising breeze, when it stirs,
To carry a lover’s letter to his beloved’s face.
My soul be the ransom of the one whose nearness revives hearts,
The one through whom the world is sweet and fragrant.
A phantom of him renewed my longing as I slept,
Gliding softly, hidden from its watcher.
By my life, I have set my cup aside since his parting,
Keeping it from me because his absence is so long. (3)

He is referring to the mother of the Commander of the Faithful al-Qādir Billāh, a freedwoman of ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn al-Muqtadir. She was among the devout and righteous, known for virtue and religion. She died on the night of Thursday, the twenty-second of Shaʿbān of this year. Her son al-Qādir led the funeral prayer, and after the night prayer her body was carried to al-Ruṣāfah.

Then the year 400 AH of the Prophetic Hijrah—upon its author be the best blessings and peace—began.

In Rabīʿ al-Ākhir of that year (4) the water of the Tigris fell sharply, so that islands appeared which had never been seen before. Navigation ceased along its course between Awāna and al-Rāshidiyyah, and orders were given for those stretches to be dredged, something that had never previously been done.

In this same year the wall around the sanctuary at al-Ḥāʾir was completed (5). It had been built by Abū Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl ibn Sahlān in fulfilment of a vow he had made (6).