and the destitute would approach. Large sums of dinars and dirhams and piles of clothing would be set before him, yet he would say, “I need a garment! I need something to still my hunger!”—and he could find none of that. They poured out the wine, smashed the musical instruments, reconciled with one another, and remained in the mosques to recite the Quran and worship. Scarcely was there a house in which wine was kept but that all its inhabitants perished.
They entered upon a man who had been in the throes of death for seven days; he motioned with his hand toward a spot where they found a large jar of wine. They emptied it, and he died at once, peacefully. A man died inside a mosque and was found to have fifty thousand dirhams with him. The money was offered to the people, but no one would accept it; it lay in the mosque for nine days and no one wanted it. Later four men came in and took it, but they died on the spot; not one of them left the mosque alive—they all perished.
The shaykh Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Muḥammad used to teach seven hundred students of jurisprudence; he died, and all of them died as well, save only twelve.
When Dubays ibn ʿAlī made peace with the ruler Ṭughrul Beg, he returned to his lands and found them in ruins because so few people had survived the plague. He sent a messenger to one of the districts, but a group waylaid him, killed him, roasted him, and ate him.
Ibn al-Jawzī (1) reports: On Wednesday, seven days before the end of Jumādā al-Ākhira, the Quarter of ʿĪsā was consumed by fire—as were the Food Market, the Synagogue, the rag-dealers’ bazaar, Barley Gate, the Perfumers’ Market, the Bride’s Market, the Drapers, the Carpenters, the Butchers, the Date-sellers, the quarter itself, the Maḥawwal Market, the Chicken Canal, the small bazaar of Ghālib, the Coppersmiths, the Dyers, and other places besides. This was yet another calamity on top of the people’s hunger, soaring prices, and mass death; weakened as they were, the flames raged unchecked and did their work. To Allah we belong and to Him we shall return.
In that same year the ayyārūn grew numerous in Baghdad. They seized wealth openly and raided houses day and night. The house of Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī, the Shiʿite dialectician, was stormed, and the books and notebooks he used to propagate his innovation and invite the followers of his sect were burned.
Also in this year the ruler Ṭughrul Beg entered Baghdad on his return from Mosul. He had taken the city back from al-Basāsīrī and entrusted it to his brother Ibrāhīm Īnāl, who governed its people well both outwardly and inwardly. The emirs, viziers, and senior dignitaries went out to meet him halfway along the road. The Chief of the Chancery produced a robe of honour from the caliph—a jewel-encrusted farjiyyah (2)—which Ṭughrul donned; then he kissed the ground. After that he entered the Caliphal Palace, riding one of the caliph’s own horses. When he came before the caliph, the latter was seated upon a throne seven cubits long, the Prophetic mantle upon his shoulders and the staff in his hand. Ṭughrul kissed the ground, whereupon the caliph seated him on a throne below his own. Then the caliph said to the Chief