—and Ibn al-Mawṣilāyya was installed in the vizierate (1); he had in fact embraced Islam earlier, at the very start of the year.

In Ramaḍān of that same year Sultan Malikshāh entered Baghdad accompanied by the vizier Niẓām al-Mulk. The Chief Judge Abū Bakr al-Shāshī and Ibn al-Mawṣilāyya al-Muslimānī went out to receive him. The border rulers also arrived to salute him, among them his brother Taj al-Dawla Tutush, lord of Damascus, and his atabeg Qasīm al-Dawla Aq-Sunqur, lord of Aleppo.

In Dhū al-Qaʿdah Malikshāh, together with his son and with his grandson—his daughter’s son by the Caliph—set out with a great multitude for Kūfah.

That year Abū Manṣūr ibn Jahīr was appointed vizier once more—his second tenure under al-Muqtadī. A robe of honor was conferred upon him, and Niẓām al-Mulk rode to his house at Bāb al-ʿĀmma to congratulate him.

In Dhū al-Ḥijjah the Sultan held the celebration of the Nativity (milād) on the Tigris. Huge bonfires were lit, countless candles kindled, and female musicians were gathered on the river barges; it was a night long remembered for its extraordinary splendor, and poets composed verse about it. When morning broke, the vile astrologer—the incendiary of Basra—who had proclaimed himself the Mahdī, Tilīyā the astrologer, was brought into Baghdad tied to a camel. He reviled the people as they cursed him in return; a tall conical cap adorned with cowrie shells had been placed on his head, and whips struck him from every side as they paraded him through Baghdad, after which he was crucified.

In the same year Sultan Malikshāh ordered Jalāl al-Dawla to complete the construction of the mosque that bore his name outside the city walls.

During this year the Commander of the Believers Yūsuf ibn Tāshfīn, lord of the Maghrib, seized much of al-Andalus (2). He captured its ruler al-Muʿtamid ibn ʿAbbād and imprisoned him and his family at Aghmāt (3). Al-Muʿtamid had been renowned for generosity, refinement, learning, forbearance, good conduct, pleasant companionship, and kindness and gentleness toward his subjects; the people grieved for him, and poets composed numerous elegies on his misfortune (4).

In the same year the Franks took possession of Sicily, one of the Maghribi territories, and their king died (5). His son succeeded him and dealt with the populace in the manner of Muslim kings, treating them so well that he seemed almost one of their own, owing to the benevolence he showed toward the Muslims.