at the Niẓāmiyya College and at once began vilifying the Ḥanbalīs, charging them with anthropomorphism. Abū Saʿd the Ṣūfī backed him up, and Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī inclined to his side. They wrote to Niẓām al-Mulk complaining about the Ḥanbalīs and asking for assistance. A group then went to the mosque of the Ḥanbalī leader, the sharīf Abū Jaʿfar ibn Abī Mūsā, while others rose to defend him, and the disturbance flared.
People actually came to blows over the affair; a tailor from the Straw Market was killed and others were wounded.
Shaykh Abū Isḥāq and Abū Bakr al-Shāshī wrote again to Niẓām al-Mulk. His reply reached Fakhr al-Dawla condemning what had taken place and refusing to allow anything of the sort to be ascribed to the college he had founded. Angry at the turmoil, Shaykh Abū Isḥāq resolved to leave Baghdad, but the caliph sent to calm him. The caliph then brought him together with the sharīf Abū Jaʿfar, Abū Saʿd the Ṣūfī, and Abū Naṣr ibn al-Qushayrī in the vizier’s presence. The vizier turned toward Abū Jaʿfar, exalting him in word and deed.
Shaykh Abū Isḥāq rose and said: “I am the very man you knew when I was young. These are my books on the principles of religion, and in them I state opinions opposed to the Ashʿarīs.” He then kissed Abū Jaʿfar’s head.
Abū Jaʿfar responded, “You speak the truth, but when you were poor we did not see what lay within you. Once the retainers, the sultan, and Khwāja-i Buzurg—meaning Niẓām al-Mulk—arrived, and you had your fill, you revealed what had been hidden in your heart.”
Shaykh Abū Saʿd the Ṣūfī now stood, kissed Abū Jaʿfar’s head, and treated him gently. Abū Jaʿfar turned to him in anger and said, “Shaykh! When jurists speak on doctrinal matters they have some standing, but you are a man of diversion, audition, and symbolic interpretation; who among us has crowded you out for your falsehood?” Then he said, “O vizier! How can you reconcile us—how could any truce be struck—when we deem obligatory what we believe while they forbid it or even pronounce it disbelief? The caliph’s grandfather al-Qādir publicly proclaimed before all people that his creed was the doctrine of Ahl al-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿa and the early generations, and we stand upon it, as agreed to by the people of Khurāsān and Iraq and read aloud in every government bureau.”
The vizier therefore wrote to the caliph informing him of what had occurred. The caliph’s answer came back thanking the assembly, especially the sharīf Abū Jaʿfar. He then summoned Abū Jaʿfar to the palace so that he might greet the caliph and confer his blessing.
Ibn al-Jawzī says: In Dhū al-Qaʿda of this year illnesses spread widely among the inhabitants of Baghdad, Wāsiṭ, and the Sawād, and word came that Syria was likewise afflicted. During the same month the reprehensible establishments and prostitutes in Baghdad were eradicated, and the libertines fled the city.
That year Naṣr ibn Maḥmūd ibn Mirdās assumed rule of Aleppo after the death of his father.
In the same year the emir ʿAlī ibn Abī Manṣūr ibn Faramurz (1) ibn ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla ibn Kākūya married Lady Arslān Khātūn, daughter of Dāʾūd and aunt of Sultan Alp Arslan; she had previously been the wife of the caliph al-Qāʾim bi-Amr Allāh.