Then, in the year 419 AH:

Fighting broke out between the army and Jalal al-Dawlah. They plundered the house of his vizier, and a long chain of events followed until they finally agreed to expel him from the city. A dilapidated zabzab (1) was prepared for him; he set out in broad daylight with a tabar (2) in his hand. No one turned toward him or gave him any thought. Yet when he was about to board that shabby zabzab they took pity on him, felt compassion for him—and, awed as they still were by his presence, they came to him, kissed the ground before him, and his case was set right after having been in disarray.

During this same year fresh dates were exceedingly scarce because most of the palm-groves had been destroyed by hail the previous year. Fresh dates were sold at the rate of three ratls for one Jalālī dinar. Another violent hailstorm struck as well and destroyed many more palm trees.

No one from the eastern lands or from Egypt performed the pilgrimage that year, except for a group from Khurasan who sailed from the city of Makrān (3) to Jeddah and performed the ḥajj—may Allah be pleased with them and have mercy on them by His grace and generosity.

Among the notable deaths of this year were:

• Ḥamzah ibn Ibrāhīm [ibn ʿAbd Allah], Abū al-Khaṭṭāb the astrologer (4). He had enjoyed favor with Bahāʾ al-Dawlah and taught him the science of the stars. His standing was such that the vizier and the emirs feared him, honored him, corresponded with him, and sought his intercession. Later his circumstances changed: he became a fugitive and an outcast, and he died in the Karkh district of Sāmarrāʾ—estranged, poor, paralyzed, his wealth, influence, and even his reason gone. There is no god but Allah alone.

• Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad (5) ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Makhlad, Abū al-Ḥasan the merchant (6). He had heard much from the earlier shaykhs and was unique in the loftiness of his chains of transmission. He possessed great wealth, but, fearing confiscation in Baghdad, he moved to Egypt for a year, then returned to Baghdad. There, the tax collectors of his quarter imposed levies that impoverished him. When he died no shroud was found for him—he had left nothing—so al-Qādir bi-llāh sent what was needed for his burial.