al-Ahwaz, and Baghdad was left without a single fighting man. The caliph resolved to depart from Baghdad for some other place—would that he had done so—but his attachment to his house and his wish to remain with his family prevailed.

Thus he lingered there in careless ease, and when the town had been emptied of soldiers an announcement was made:
“Whoever wishes to leave may go wherever he chooses.”
The people were thrown into turmoil; men, women, and children wept. Many crossed to the western bank, and because the bridge had been cut the ferrymen charged one—indeed two—dinars.

Ibn al-Jawzi (1) relates: “That night some ten owls flew together over the caliph’s residence, screeching in a most distressing manner.”

It was suggested to the Chief of Chiefs that, for the common good, the caliph should leave Baghdad now that it had no troops, but he refused. Instead they began recruiting a group of the common folk and handed them a great quantity [a great quantity] of weapons from the royal armory.

On Sunday, the eighth of Dhu al-Qaʿdah of this year, al-Basasiri entered Baghdad bearing the white Egyptian standards, and above him banners inscribed with [the name of] al-Imam al-Mustansir billah, Abu Tamim Maʿadd, Commander of the Faithful. The Rāfiḍa (Shiʿite partisans) of al-Karkh came out to greet him, implored him, and asked that he stay among them; so he entered al-Karkh, then went on to the quay of al-Zawaya and camped there. The populace were in hardship and severe famine. Quraysh ibn Badran encamped with roughly two hundred horsemen at the quay of Bab al-Basrah. Al-Basasiri had gathered the ʿayyār rabble and enticed them with the prospect of plundering the caliphal palace.

The people of al-Karkh looted the houses of the Sunnis at Bab al-Basrah; the residence of the Chief Judge al-Damghani was plundered, most of the registers and legal documents were destroyed and sold to the perfumers; the houses of those attached [in service] to the caliph were pillaged. The Rāfiḍa restored to the call to prayer the phrase ḥayya ʿalā khayr al-ʿamal ("Come to the best of deeds"), and it was proclaimed in every mosque of Baghdad for the Friday and daily prayers.

The khuṭbah was delivered in the name of al-Mustansir the ʿUbaydi—known as the Fatimid—on the pulpits of Baghdad and elsewhere, and coins were struck for him in gold and silver. The caliphal palace was besieged. The vizier Abu al-Qasim ibn al-Maslameh, surnamed Raʾīs al-Ruʾasāʾ, fought desperately with the hirelings at his side, but it availed nothing. The caliph then mounted, clad in black with the Prophetic mantle upon his shoulders, the standard above his head, a drawn sword in his hand, and surrounded by a band of Hashimites (2); the slave-girls were unveiled, their hair disheveled, carrying Qurʾans aloft on the tips of lances, while before him the servants advanced with naked swords.

The caliph then secured a pledge of protection from the Arab emir Quraysh ibn Badran for himself, his family, and his vizier Ibn al-Maslameh; the emir guaranteed them all and lodged the caliph in his own tent. Al-Basasiri reproached him for this, saying, “You know the pact between you and me: you are not to act without consulting me, nor I without consulting you; whatever we gain shall be shared between us.”

Al-Basasiri summoned Abu al-Qasim ibn al-Maslameh, rebuked him with [a publicly humiliating] reprimand, censured him harshly, then beat him savagely and detained him in disgrace. The common people then plundered the caliphal palace; the amount they carried off in jewels, precious objects, brocade [and gold