I lent them my heart in full confidence—
but they have never returned what they borrowed.
Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Ḥāmid ibn ʿUbayd (1), Abū Jaʿfar al-Bukhārī, the theologian and Muʿtazilī, resided in Baghdad and was known as the Judge of Aleppo. He followed the Ḥanafī school in practical law while adhering to Muʿtazilī doctrine in theology. He died in Baghdad this year and was buried at Bāb Ḥarb.
Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muhammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Iṣfahānī (2), commonly called Ibn Samkuwiyya (3), was one of the itinerant ḥuffāẓ who travelled far and wide. He heard a vast number of hadiths, amassed books, and settled in Herat. A pious man of abundant worship, he passed away—may Allah have mercy on him—at Nīshāpūr in Dhū’l-Ḥijjah of this year.
Then came the year 483 AH.
• In Muḥarram a decree from Niẓām al-Mulk reached the jurist Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṭabarī, appointing him to teach at the Niẓāmiyya in Baghdad, whereupon he took up the position. In Rabīʿ al-Awwal another decree from the same patron arrived for the jurist Abū Muhammad ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shīrāzī, likewise commissioning him to teach there, and it was agreed that the two would alternate days.
• In Jumādā al-Ūlā a man named Tilyā (4) descended upon Basra. An astrologer by trade, he beguiled many of the townspeople and claimed to be the Mahdī. He set fire to large parts of the city, including a house that had been the very first endowed library in Islam—nothing of its like had ever been seen—and destroyed numerous bookcases, workshops, and other structures.
• During the same year a robe of honor was conferred upon Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Ṭirād al-Zaynabī, confirming him as naqīb of the ʿAbbāsid family in succession to his father.
• A legal inquiry was submitted concerning whether elementary teachers should be barred from the mosques to safeguard their sanctity. The jurists issued a fatwa prohibiting them, exempting only one man, a Shāfiʿī jurist who understood how to preserve the dignity of the mosques. The mufti based his ruling on the Prophet’s—peace and blessings be upon him—statement:
“Block every small door except the door of Abū Bakr.” (5)