nor restrain the offender and curb his oppression (1)
on the very morning I cry out for glory and claim it as my own;
then let no Arab ambition rise within me (2)
to lift me toward honor, scaling the peaks of every lofty summit.

Hibat Allah ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Sībī (3)
Tutor of the caliph al-Muqtadī bi-Amr Allah. He studied hadith and died in Muḥarram of this year, having lived past eighty. He left behind fine poetry, among which are the following verses:

I asked my Creator to grant me eighty years,
because of what the Chosen One related about that span.
He let me reach it—praise be to Him!—
and graciously added three more besides.
And indeed (4) I await His promise,
for He is the One who never fails to fulfill.

Then came the year 479 AH (5), and in it:

A battle was fought between Tutush, lord of Damascus, and Sulaymān ibn Qutulmish, ruler of Aleppo, Antioch, and the surrounding districts. Sulaymān’s forces were routed, and he killed himself with a dagger he carried. Sultan Malik-Shah marched from Isfahan to Aleppo, took the city, and seized the territories he passed on his way—Ḥizān, ar-Ruha, and the Fortress of Jaʿbar. Jaʿbar was an aged, blind shaykh with two sons, and highwaymen had long used the fortress as a refuge.

[The sultan wrote to Sābiq ibn Jaʿbar, asking him to surrender the fortress; he refused, so Malik-Shah set up mangonels and trebuchets, captured it, and ordered Sābiq’s execution. His wife pleaded, “Do not kill him until you kill me with him.” The sultan struck her on the head, fracturing it, and afterwards ordered Sābiq to be sawn in half] (6).

His wife then threw herself after him and survived. Some people reproached her for that, but she said, “I did not wish the Turk to reach me, for that would have been a lasting disgrace to me.” They approved of her resolve.

The sultan appointed Qasīm al-Dawlah Aq-Sungur al-Turkī—grandfather of Nūr al-Dīn the Martyr—as governor of Aleppo. Over al-Raḥbah, Ḥarrān, al-Raqqah, Saruj, and the Khābūr he installed Muḥammad ibn Sharaf al-Dawlah Muslim, married him to his sister Zulaykhā Khātūn, and dismissed Fakhr al-Dawlah ibn Jahīr from Diyār