and Sulayman. Shahwand (1) bore for al-Walid Yazid and Ibrahim, both of whom likewise ascended the caliphate, and al-Khayzuran bore for al-Mahdi al-Hadi and al-Rashid—may Allah be pleased with them.

al-Tughra’i (2)—author of the Lāmiyyat al-ʿAjam, al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, Muʾayyid al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, al-ʿAmīd, the Pride of the Scribes (3), the celebrated poet known as al-Tughra’i—served for a time as vizier in Irbil.

Qadi Ibn Khallikan reproduced in full his Lāmiyya ode, composed in Baghdad in the year 505 AH, in which the poet lays out his circumstances and concerns. It is known as the Lāmiyyat al-ʿAjam, and it opens:

Sound judgment has shielded me from error,
 while virtue’s ornament has graced me in adversity.
My glory at the end (4) and my glory at the start are one—
 the sun at high noon is the very sun at dawn.
Why linger in al-Zawra’ when it holds no dwelling for me,
 no she-camel of mine within it, no mount, no camel at all.

Ibn Khallikan quotes the entire poem (5) and cites other pieces of his verse as well.

[Then the year 516 AH began] (6)

In Muḥarram of that year Sultan Ṭughrul-Beg returned to obedience to his brother Maḥmud after he had previously (7) broken away and taken possession of the lands of Azerbaijan (8).

In the same year Sultan Maḥmud granted the city of Wāsiṭ and its districts (9) to Āq-Sunqur as an adjunct to Mosul; he therefore dispatched ʿImād al-Dīn Zangi ibn Āq-Sunqur, who assumed the governorship, ruled well, and displayed firmness and competence (10).