Many of the rawāshin (projecting balconies) of the Caliphal Palace and the Palace of Government were demolished, and no one from Iraq performed the pilgrimage that year.

[Among the notable people who died in this year]

Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Manṣūr (1), Abū al-Ḥasan, known as al-ʿAtīqī after an ancestor called ʿAtīq. He heard hadith from Ibn Shāhīn and others, was regarded as reliable, and died in Ṣafar, having passed the age of seventy (2).

ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥusayn, Abū al-Qāsim al-ʿAlawī (3), better known as Ibn al-Shabiyah (4). Al-Khaṭīb said, “He heard hadith from Ibn al-Muẓaffar, and I myself copied from him. He was truthful, devout, sound in creed, earned his living by copying manuscripts for hire, lived on that income, and gave in charity. He died in Rajab of this year, having passed eighty.”

ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Aqḍā al-Quḍāt Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māwardī (5), surnamed Abū al-Fāʾiz. He testified before Ibn Mākūlā in 431 AH, and, out of respect for his father, his testimony was accepted. He died in Muḥarram of this year.

The ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad al-Ṣūrī (6). Though already advanced in years, he set out to study hadith for himself, journeyed to distant lands, wrote abundantly, and composed works. He benefited from the ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Ghanī b. Saʿīd al-Miṣrī, who in turn copied some of al-Ṣūrī’s own writings. In youth he ranked among the most zealous seekers of hadith, and later among the most determined to practise righteous deeds: he fasted every day (7) except the two ʿĪd days and the days of Tashrīq. Despite such rigor he was good-natured and pleasant to associate with. After losing one eye he could still, with the other, copy an entire multi-volume work into a single fascicle.

Abū al-Ḥasan b. al-Ṭuyūrī said: “It is claimed that virtually all of al-Khaṭīb’s works—apart from his History—were taken from the writings of ʿAbd Allāh.”