If one mighty mountain has gone and passed away,
from you we now have a mountain firmly anchored.

We were bereaved of a flawless full-moon,
but the mid-morning sun of it still remains.

Sorrow has come to dwell where joy should be—
how much laughter lies amid (1) the tears (2)!

O sword that a hand has returned to its sheath,
after you we still possess the sword unsheathed.

When we gathered to conclude the bayʿa (pledge of allegiance),
through your guidance we found the paths of right direction.

You received us with the dignity of grey hair, in perfect maturity,
even though your years are the years of a youth.

The Turks demanded the customary payment for the bayʿa, yet the caliph had nothing [to give them], for his father had left no money. Civil strife nearly broke out among the people on that account, until King Jalāl al-Dawla paid on his behalf a large sum of about three thousand dinars. The caliph then appointed Abū Ṭālib Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb as his vizier and installed Ibn Makūlā as judge.

No one from the eastern lands performed the ḥajj that year except for a small band who set out from Kūfa with some Arabs [and they did perform the pilgrimage].

[Among the notables who died in that year, apart from the caliph, were:]

al-Ḥasan ibn Jaʿfar (3)—Abū ʿAlī ibn Makūlā, vizier to Jalāl al-Dawla. It was mentioned earlier that he had been sent to al-Baṭīḥa and captured it; he then attempted to take Basra but was unable, and its people fought him, captured him, and he asked to be taken to King Abū Kālijār, who pardoned and released him. When he reached Ahwāz a slave-boy and a maidservant conspired against him and killed him in Dhu al-Ḥijjah of this year, at the age of fifty-six.

ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAlī (4) ibn Naṣr ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Hārūn ibn Mālik ibn Ṭawq, lord of al-Raḥba, of the Taghlib clan, a Baghdadi, Abū Muḥammad—one of the foremost imams of the Mālikī school, a prolific and balanced author. His book al-Talqīn is memorised by students, and he wrote other works on both subsidiary and foundational jurisprudence. He lived in Baghdad for a long time, serving as judge in Badarāyā and Bakasāyā (5), but later left Baghdad because of straightened circumstances. When he entered Egypt the Maghribīs honoured him, bestowed abundant gold upon him, and he became wealthy and very prosperous.

Yearning for Baghdad and its landmarks he composed:

‘Peace be upon Baghdad in every station,
for she is surely entitled to a greeting redoubled from me.’