consisting of one thousand head of sheep, one hundred camels and horses, twenty thousand chickens, and twenty thousand mann of sugar. Upon it were fashioned from sugar a great many figures of birds and wild beasts. The sultan picked up a small piece with his own hand; then, with a mere gesture, the entire spread was carried off. He next moved to an immense silk pavilion, the like of which had never been seen. Inside were five hundred pieces of silver and gold together with all manner of statuettes of aloes-wood, musk, ambergris, and other precious substances. There a private table was set, and the sultan ate; afterward Ṣadaqah presented him with twenty thousand dinars and offered him the pavilion in its entirety, whereupon he withdrew.
Among those of note who died this year were:
The amir Jaʿbar ibn Sābiq al-Qushayrī (1), known as Sābiq al-Dīn. He had long held Qalʿat Jaʿbar, so that it came to bear his name—previously it had been called al-Dusariyyah, after a slave of al-Nuʿmān ibn al-Mundhir—until the amir grew old and lost his sight (2). He had two sons who waylaid travellers; when Sultan Malik-Shah ibn Alp Arslan the Seljuk passed by on his way to Aleppo, he compelled him to leave the fortress, slew him, and took it from them.
The amir Khatlag (3), commander of the ḥajj caravan. He held Kūfah as an iqṭāʿ and fought several engagements with the Bedouins that displayed his valor, struck terror into their hearts, and scattered them far and wide. He was of commendable conduct, steadfast in the prescribed prayers, and frequent in reciting the Quran. Along the road to Mecca he left many good works, repairing reservoirs and other facilities needed by pilgrims and others. He endowed a Ḥanafī madrasa at the shrine of Jonah in Kūfah and built a mosque on the western bank of Baghdad on the Tigris at the Karkh landing. He died in Jumada al-Ula of this year—may Allah have mercy on him. When the news reached Nizām al-Mulk he said, “A thousand men have died.”
ʿAlī ibn Faḍḍāl al-Mujāshiʿī (4), Abū ʿAlī (5), the Moroccan grammarian.