Then the year 458 AH began.
On the Day of ʽĀshūrāʾ the inhabitants of al-Karkh shut their shops and brought in women to lament for Ḥusayn, following the earlier, deviant customs of their innovation. When this occurred the populace objected; the caliph summoned Abū al-Ghanāʾim, the naqīb of the Ṭālibids, and reproached him. He excused himself, saying he had known nothing of the matter and that, once informed, he had put an end to it. The people of al-Karkh continued to visit the dīwān, apologizing and disavowing any connection with the affair. A decree was issued declaring unbelief upon whoever reviles the Companions or displays innovations.
Ibn al-Jawzī (1) said: In Rabīʽ al-Awwal a baby girl was born at Bāb al-Azaǧ with two heads, two faces, two necks and four arms on a single complete body; she died soon afterward.
He continued: In Jumādā al-Ākhirah an earthquake struck Khurāsān and lasted for several days; mountains split apart, many people were killed, several villages were engulfed, and the inhabitants fled to the open plain and remained there.
A fire broke out along Nahr Muʽallā in Baghdad, burning one hundred shops and three houses. Much property was lost and the people began looting one another.
Ibn al-Jawzī also said: In Shaʽbān fighting erupted in Damascus. A house adjacent to the congregational mosque was set ablaze, and the Great Mosque of Damascus caught fire. So he reported; yet the well-known view is that the fire occurred on the night of mid-Shaʽbān in 461 AH, three years later. The Fatimid mamluks fought the Abbasid mamluks; a firebrand was hurled into the Dār al-Imārah, known as the Khadraʾ, which burned down, and the blaze spread until it reached the mosque. Its roofs collapsed, its decoration perished, and its marble was destroyed, leaving it in ruins.
The Khadraʾ itself vanished, becoming a mound of earth after having been built with the utmost solidity and perfection, celebrated for musical entertainment, pleasant gatherings, and the beauty of its architecture and appearance. To this very day no one inhabits it, because of the wretched state of the site, save the lowest and most destitute—though it had been the residence of the caliphate, sovereignty, and governorship ever since it was founded by Muʽāwiyah ibn Abī Sufyān, may Allah have mercy on him.
As for the Umayyad Mosque, there was no edifice on earth more splendid than it until it burned; it then lay in ruins for a long time. The kings later began rebuilding and restoring it, and its paving was completed in the reign of al-ʽĀdil Abū Bakr ibn Ayyūb. Work on its refinement continued into our own day, so that its present state now approximates what it once was—yet, compared with its original grandeur, it is virtually nothing. Enhancement of the mosque has gone on into these very years under the supervision of Emir Sayf al-Dīn Tankiz ʽAbd Allah al-Nāṣirī, around the year 730 AH, a little before and after. May Allah have mercy on him.