I spent the night as his guest—so destiny had ruled it,
And in destiny’s rule over the free man is disgrace— (1)
He began to address me, his head still swimming with drink,
Laden with cares, far from sobriety.
“Why did you go abroad?” he asked. I replied, “The Messenger of Allah—
And every word of his is sound advice and sure success—said:
‘Travel and you will prosper.’” He answered at once,
For he knew the rest of the ḥadith: “Fast and you will be healthy.” (2)
[Then came the year 420 AH]
In that year a heavy rain fell in the eastern lands, accompanied by enormous hailstones. Ibn al-Jawzi (3) said: “I estimated a single stone at one hundred and fifty ratls (a classical weight), and it sank into the ground about one cubit.”
A letter also arrived from Yamin al-Dawlah Maḥmūd ibn Subuktikīn reporting that he had inflicted a sweeping slaughter upon a group of Bāṭinis and Rāfiḍites in Rayy, crucifying many of them in a hideous manner. The wealth of their leader, Rustam ibn ʿAlī al-Daylamī, reached him, and he collected from it nearly one million dinars. Rustam had also kept in his household some fifty free women who had borne him thirty-three children, male and female, and he regarded such license as permissible.
In Rajab of this year many meteors streaked across the sky, loud in sound and brilliant in light.
In Shaʿbān the ʿumalāt (bands of ruffians) (4) multiplied, and the men of the auxiliary forces were too weak to withstand the ʿayyārūn. On Monday the twenty-second (5) of the month, the waters of the Tigris (6) subsided until only a trickle remained; the water-mills stopped, and grinding grain became impossible.
On that same day the judges and scholars were assembled in the Palace of the Caliphate, where a treatise compiled by the Commander of the Faithful al-Qādir bi-Allah was read aloud. It contained exhortations, a detailed exposition of the doctrines of Ahl al-Sunnah, refutations of the innovators, a declaration that whoever claimed the Qur’an to be created was a sinner, and an account of the debate that had taken place between Bishr al-Marīsī (7) and ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Yaḥyā al-Kinānī (8). He then concluded