Al-Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān (1) has preserved a number of exquisitely polished passages from his poetry; among them (2) is the ode which—had he composed nothing else—would alone have sufficed. It opens:

[long-meter]
Bring from Najd’s soft breeze a pledge to ease his heart,
for almost does its perfume make his reason part.

Beware, you two, that very breath; for when it blows,
longing itself becomes the least of all his woes.

My two companions—had you loved, you would have known
how passion rules within a heart that is love’s own (3).

Do you recall?—remembrance longs, and every lover yearns;
whomever love ensnares, in sorrow’s fever burns.

A bondage that persists through hopelessness and hope in equal share,
a yearning that endures whether the visit be distant or near.

Among the caravan there rides a man whose ribs conceal a burning pain;
whenever passion summons him, he answers the refrain.

Let but a waft arise from the sandy brink of the plain—
he alone inhales its sickness, his comrades left unstained.

Screened behind spear-tips, he averts his face from me;
within my heart his turning sets a barrier equal to that shield (4).

Jealousy seizes me whenever in the camp I hear a sigh,
fearing, dreading that the moan be breathed for love of him thereby.

He died in Ramadan, at the age of sixty-seven (5), in Damascus.

[Then came the year 518 AH]

In that year: the Bāṭinīs emerged in Āmid. The townspeople fought them and slew seven hundred—praise be to Allah (6).

Also in that year: the office of shihna in Baghdad was restored to Saʿd al-Dawla Yaranqash al-Zakawī, and Manṣūr ibn Ṣadaqa, the brother of Dubays, was handed over to him so that he might deliver him to the caliphal court.

News then arrived that Dubays had sought refuge with Ṭughrulbek and that the two had agreed to seize Baghdad; the people therefore began preparing (7) to fight them (8). Āq Sunqur the Turk was ordered back to Mosul, and he appointed ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī ibn Āq Sunqur as his deputy over Basra.