• A number of young men were arrested; they had chosen a leader for themselves called ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Hāshimī and were corresponding with him from various regions. The go-between who served him was a man known as Ibn Rasūl. Their meetings were held at the Barāthā Mosque, and when it was feared that they might be collaborating with the Egyptians, an order was issued for their arrest (1).
• Khatlag again led the people on the Pilgrimage in this same year.
Among the notable deaths that year were the following:
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Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl (2), Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Akhdar, the ḥadith scholar. He had studied with Abū ʿAlī ibn Shadhān, adhered to the Zāhirī school, was constant in Qur’an recitation and of exemplary conduct, lived on little of this world, and was content with it. May Allah have mercy on him.
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The Ṣulayḥī (3) who dominated Yemen: Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, known as al-Ṣulayḥī. His father had been a judge in Yemen and was a Sunni. Al-Ṣulayḥī himself pursued learning and excelled in many fields, yet was a Shiʿi on the Qarmaṭī doctrine. For fifteen years he supervised the pilgrims’ caravan, and his fame grew until people believed he would one day rule Yemen. After his death, Najāḥ, the ruler of Tihāma, emerged in Yemen, seized the whole country in record time, and secured the throne in 455 AH. Al-Ṣulayḥī had the khuṭba delivered in the name of al-Mustanṣir the ʿUbaydī, the ruler of Egypt. In the present year he set out for the Pilgrimage with two thousand horsemen, but Saʿīd ibn Najāḥ ambushed him at al-Mahjam with a small band; in the ensuing fight he and his brother were killed, and Saʿīd ibn Najāḥ took over his realm and its holdings.
Some of al-Ṣulayḥī’s poetry reads:
I mated the white Indian blades with their dusky spears—
their severed heads became the scattering of coins at the feast.
Lofty honor, likewise, is never brought to wedlock
except where lifetimes themselves are cast aside. -
Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn (4) ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Shibl (5), Abū ʿAlī, the Baghdadi poet. He narrated ḥadith and composed refined verse, of which is the following: