Bakr and handed the province over to the chief administrator Abū ʿAlī al-Balkhī. He bestowed a robe of honor upon Sayf al-Dawlah Ṣadaqah ibn Dubays al-Asadī, confirmed him in his father’s post, and entered Baghdad in Dhu al-Qaʿdah of this year—his first entry into the city. He visited the sacred shrines and graves, then presented himself to the caliph, kissed his hand, and placed it upon his eyes. The caliph, in turn, invested him with a splendid robe and delegated to him the affairs of the people. The caliph reviewed his commanders while Nizām al-Mulk stood before him, introducing them one after another by name, together with the size of each man’s army and the extent of his fief.
The sultan then left and went to the Nizāmiyyah College, which he had not seen before. He admired it, though he considered it somewhat small; he praised its residents and all who were in it, thanked Allah, and prayed that the institution be made purely for His noble countenance (1). He took seat in its library, dictated a portion of the hadiths he had heard, and the traditionists received it directly from him.
The shaykh Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Abī al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥusaynī al-Dabbūsī (2) arrived in Baghdad with great pomp, and was appointed to teach at the Nizāmiyyah after Abū Saʿd (3) al-Mutawallī. In Rabīʿ al-Ākhir the minaret of the Palace Mosque was completed and the call to prayer was proclaimed from it (4).
In this same year mighty earthquakes struck Iraq, the Jazīrah, and Syria, destroying much of their buildings; most people fled to the open countryside and later returned. The amir Khumārtakīn al-Jastānī (5) led the pilgrimage. The khuṭbah naming the Egyptians was discontinued in Mecca and Medina, and the plaques affixed to the door of the Kaʿbah that bore the name of the Egyptian caliph were removed and replaced with others on which the name of al-Muqtadī was inscribed.
Ibn al-Jawzī (6) said: A man appeared between al-Sindiyyah and Wāsiṭ, robbing travelers. His left hand had been cut off, yet he could unlock bolts with extraordinary speed, dive into the Tigris twice without surfacing, leap twenty-five cubits in a single bound, and scale sheer walls; no one could seize him, and he emerged from al-ʿArāf unscathed.
He also said: In the same year a beggar who used to solicit alms in the Manṣūr Mosque died; in his patched cloak six hundred Maghribī dinars were found.
He further said: In this year Sayf al-Dawlah Ṣadaqah prepared a banquet for the sultan, Jalāl al-Dawlah Abū al-Fatḥ Malik-Shah,