who composed works that bear witness to his scholarship and the depth of his understanding; he also transmitted ḥadith. He died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the present year and was buried at Bāb Abraz (1). May Allah have mercy on him.

ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad al-Tustarī (2) was the leading man of Basra in both wealth and social standing. He owned ships that plied the sea, had memorised the Quran, listened to ḥadith, and was the sole transmitter of Abū Dāwūd’s Sunan. He passed away in Rajab of this year.

Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥusayn Ismāʿīl al-Ḥusaynī (3)(4) was a jurist on the school of Zayd ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn and was well versed in legal theory and ḥadith.

Then the year 480 AH began. In its month of Muḥarram the dowry of Sultan Malik-Shāh’s daughter was transported to the honoured Caliphal palace on 130 camels draped in Byzantine silk and bearing vessels of gold and silver. It was accompanied by 74 mules arrayed in royal silk, their bells and collars of gold and silver; on six of them stood twelve silver chests filled with every kind of jewel and ornament. Preceding the mules were 33 horses with golden saddlery set with diverse gems, together with a magnificent cradle covered in royal silk and plated with gold studded with jewels. The caliph dispatched the vizier Abū Shujāʿ to receive the procession, accompanied by about 300 torch-bearers in addition to the normal escort, in honour of the lady Khātūn, the sultan’s wife, Tarkān Khātūn (5), the caliph’s mother-in-law. He asked her to convey the noble trust to the Caliphal palace, and she consented. The vizier Niẓām al-Mulk and the leading amirs were present (6), and before them were more candles and flaming torches than could be counted. The wives of the amirs arrived next, each with her own entourage and maidservants. After everyone had come, the princess—the sultan’s daughter and the caliph’s bride—rode in a litter draped in rich cloth and embellished with an amount of gold and jewels whose value defies reckoning (7), while two hundred Turkish slave-girls surrounded the litter.