Abū Naṣr al-Sijzī (1)

ʿUbayd Allah ibn Saʿīd ibn Ḥātim, Abū Naṣr al-Sijzī al-Wāʾilī—so called after a village named Wāʾil, one of the villages of Sijistān (2)—heard a vast amount of narration, collected, authored, and produced critical editions. He settled in the Sacred Precinct. Among his works are al-Ibāna fī al-Uṣūl and another on the subsidiary rulings. Some even rated his powers of memorization above those of al-Ṣūrī—may Allah have mercy on him.

Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Anmāṭī (3), known as Ibn Sikkīta, was born in 390 AH. He was an avid listener to hadith, and he died this year at the age of seventy-nine.

Then the year 470 AH dawned.

Ibn al-Jawzī (4) said: In Rabīʿ al-Awwal a lightning bolt struck the quarter of al-Tawtha (5) on the western side, hitting two date-palms in a mosque and burning their tops. People climbed up, extinguished the flames, and brought the fronds down while they were still ablaze.

He also said: A letter arrived from Niẓām al-Mulk addressed to Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī, written around the margins of an epistle he had sent concerning the Ḥanbalīs; Ibn al-Jawzī reproduced it. Its purport was that it is impossible to abolish the legal schools or turn their adherents away from them, and that the dominant school in that region is the school of Imām Aḥmad. His standing among the imams is well-known, and his rank in the Sunnah is recognized—followed by a lengthy discourse.

He added: In Shawwāl a clash broke out between the Ḥanbalīs and certain jurists of the Niẓāmiyya. Groups of commoners sided with each faction, about twenty people were killed and others wounded, and then the disturbance subsided.

On the nineteenth of Shawwāl the caliph al-Muqtadī was blessed with a son, al-Mustazhir bi-Amr Allah, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad, and congratulations were offered.