He was the vizier of Sultan Maḥmūd, openly given to tyranny and depravity. He imposed mukūs (1)—illicit tolls—upon the populace and reintroduced them after they had been abolished for a long time. He used to say, “I am ashamed of the abundance of oppression I inflict upon those who have no helper, and of the many (2) evil practices I have instituted.”

When he resolved to set out for Hamadhān, he summoned the astrologers, who cast for him a sand-table to determine the very hour of his departure (3) so that his return might be the swifter. He left at that hour, preceded by bared swords (4) and followed by mamluks in dazzling numbers. Yet none of that availed him: a Bāṭinī (5) came upon him and struck him, killing him [on the spot after stabbing him repeatedly in his vital organs, then slaughtering him as a sheep is slaughtered while the mamluks rained sword-blows and arrows upon the assassin’s back; he paid no heed to any of it until he had slain him, after which he himself died] (6).

His womenfolk returned with their faces unveiled; Allah had exchanged for them humiliation after honour (7), fear after security, and grief after joy and delight—an exact recompense. This occurred on Tuesday, the last day of Ṣafar. Their plight calls to mind the verses of Abū al-ʿAtāhiyah concerning al-Khayzurān and her slave-girls when al-Mahdī died:

[from the mujazʾ of the Raml metre]
They went forth clad in brocade … and by morning wore sack-cloth;
Every head-butting champion of Time … has a day when he is overthrown. (8)
You shall surely die, even were you … granted the lifespan of Noah;
So weep for yourself … if you must needs weep.

al-Ḥarīrī (9), author of the Maqāmāt—al-Qāsim ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad (10) ibn ʿUthmān, Fakhr al-Dīn, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥarīrī al-Baṣrī: the composer of the Maqāmāt, whose eloquence has travelled with every caravan and in which he all but surpassed Saḥbān, and to which no one had previously