Abū Aḥmad al-Mūsawī, in order to reprimand him. The latter summoned his son al-Raḍī, who categorically denied having ever recited that poem—for the Rāfiḍīs are known for practicing taqiyyah (dissimulation) (1). His father therefore said to him, “If you truly did not compose it, then write a few lines in which you state that al-Ḥākim the ʿUbaydī is a pretender with no lineage.” Al-Raḍī replied, “I fear the repercussions of that,” and persisted in refusing to say what his father demanded. Couriers went back and forth between the caliph and the family on the matter, and they continued to deny it until Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfarāʾīnī and the judge Abū Bakr were dispatched to him; they made him swear by Allah, with the most emphatic oaths, that he had never uttered the poem. Allah knows best the real state of affairs.
He died on the fifth of Muḥarram of this year, at the age of forty-seven. The vizier, the judges, and the notables attended his funeral; the vizier Fakhr al-Mulk led the prayer over him, and he was buried in his residence adjoining the Anbārī Mosque. His brother, the noble Sharīf al-Murtadā, assumed the offices he had held, and [other posts] and additional positions were added to him as we have mentioned. His brother also mourned him [with a powerful elegy, excellent in its opening] (2). May Allah Most High have mercy upon him.
Bādīs ibn Manṣūr ibn Bulukkīn (3) ibn Zīrī ibn Manād al-Ḥimyarī (4), Abū al-Muʿizz—Manād ibn Bādīs—was the Fatimid governor over the territories of Ifrīqiya, the son of its former governor. Al-Ḥākim had granted him the honorific Naṣr al-Dawla. He possessed immense dignity, authority, and respect, together with outstanding courage and gallantry; when he merely shook a spear, it would break.
He died suddenly, without warning, on the night of Wednesday, the last day of Dhū al-Qaʿda of this year. It is said that one of the righteous had prayed against him that very night. After him, his son al-Muʿizz Manād took charge. Allah knows best.
[Then the year 407 AH began.]
In Rabīʿ al-Awwal of that year the shrine of Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī [at Karbalāʾ] and its porticoes were destroyed by fire. The blaze began when the caretakers lit two large candles that, during the night, toppled onto the draperies and set them alight; the flames spread to adjacent structures, with all the ensuing devastation.
In that same month the Dār al-Quṭn in Baghdad burned down, as did many buildings at Bāb al-Baṣra, and the congregational mosque of Sāmarrāʾ was also consumed by fire.