were al-Basāsirī’s children and their mother. Bedouin raiders had robbed them of everything, so they reached al-Baṭīḥa stripped of their possessions and full of sorrow. Later, Ibn Mazīd obtained a guarantee of safe-conduct from the Sultan and entered Baghdad with him. In the meantime the royal troops plundered all that lay between Wāsiṭ, Basra, and Ahwāz, such was the army’s size and breadth.

As for the Caliph, once he had returned to the Palace of the Caliphate he bound himself by a covenant with Allah: never to sleep on a raised mattress, never to allow anyone to bring him food while he was fasting, and never to let anyone serve him in performing his ablution or ritual bath; he would see to all of that himself. He also pledged before Allah that he would not harm anyone who had harmed him and that he would pardon whoever had wronged him. He used to say: “You have not punished the one who disobeys Allah against you with anything greater than obeying Allah regarding him.”

In this same year:
Malik Alp Arslān ibn Dāwud Jaghri Beg ibn Mīkāʾīl ibn Seljūq assumed rule over Khurasan (1) after his father’s death, by the decision of his uncle, Malik Ṭughril Beg. He had three brothers—Sulaymān, Qārūn, and Yāqūt (2). Ṭughril Beg married the mother of that Sulaymān and designated him as heir to the throne after him.

That year Mecca witnessed an unprecedented cheapness of provisions: wheat and dates were sold at two hundred ratls for a single dinar. No one from Iraq performed the pilgrimage that year.

Among the notable deaths of the year:
Arslān Abū al-Ḥārith al-Basāsirī, the Turk (3). He had been one of the mamlūks of Bahāʾ al-Dawla ibn ʿAḍud al-Dawla. Originally he belonged to a man from the town of Basā, hence the name al-Basāsirī; his honorific was al-Muẓaffar. He later became a prominent commander under the Caliph al-Qāʾim bi-Amr Allah, and no decision was made without him; the Friday sermon was delivered in his name from every pulpit in Iraq. Then he grew arrogant, rebelled, and rose up against the Caliph—indeed, against the Muslims—calling for allegiance to the Fatimid caliphate. His corrupt ambition was realized for a time and he was led on (4) until his appointed end came this very year, as we have narrated—praise be to Allah. He and his family had entered Baghdad on the sixth of Dhu al-Qaʿdah, 450 AH, and they left it on the sixth of Dhu al-Qaʿdah, 451 AH—exactly one lunar year later. The Caliph himself departed Baghdad on Tuesday, the eighteenth of