cease plying him with honey and the like until he yielded and became more obedient to him than to his own father and mother. Ḥasan would then dazzle him with countless feats of legerdemain, nīrangiyyāt, and other tricks that could fool only the ignorant, until a vast multitude gathered round him.

The ruler Malik Shah had already sent him a letter full of threats and rebukes, forbidding him (from dispatching the fidāʾiyyah assassins against the scholars) [and enclosing the jurists’ legal opinions]. When Ḥasan read the letter in the envoy’s presence he said to the young men standing before him, “I wish to send one of you as a messenger to his master.” Every face among them craned forward expectantly. He then said to one of the youths, “Kill yourself.” The lad drew a knife, cut his own throat, and fell dead. He said to another, “Throw yourself down from this spot.” The youth hurled himself from the summit of the fortress into the bottom of its moat and was dashed to pieces. Ḥasan then said to the sultan’s envoy, “That is the reply.” From that moment the sultan refused to correspond with him again. Ibn al-Jawzī relates the incident in this fashion (1), and later we shall mention that King Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb, the conqueror of Jerusalem, had a similar encounter with Sinān (2), lord of the Alamūt fortresses (3).

In the month of Ramaḍān the caliph al-Mustazhir billāh ordered that the Palace Mosque be reopened and white-washed, that the tarāwīḥ (Ramadan night prayers) be performed there, that the basmalah be recited aloud, and that women be prevented from going out at night for amusement.

At the beginning of this year the sultan Barkiyāruq entered Baghdad. His two brothers, Muḥammad and Sanjar, soon followed him—and he was ill at the time. They crossed to the western bank, his name was removed from the Friday sermon, and the khuṭbah was delivered in their names instead. Barkiyāruq fled to Wāsiṭ, and as his army passed through the provinces and districts it plundered whatever lay in its path. Some scholars tried to forbid him and admonished him, but it proved to no avail.

In the same year the Franks seized numerous fortresses, among them Caesarea (4) and Saruj (5). The Frankish king—Kundebri (6), the very one who had taken Jerusalem—then marched on Acre and besieged it, but an arrow struck him in the neck and he died on the spot. May Allah’s curse be upon him and upon his troops.