For Allah has granted an age in which you are its imām,
and a faith of Allah wherein you stand for us in the foremost place.

Guarded above all mankind and every realm—
whenever an age that shelters you grows old, another age arrives.

On this joyous Feast you awoke the object of congratulations;
it is ennobled for us by your prayer and your sacrifice.

When the Caliph descended from the pulpit he slaughtered the sacrificial beast with his own hand, then entered the pavilion. The people wept and prayed for the Caliph’s success and victory.

After that, Sultan Maḥmūd entered Baghdad on Tuesday, the eighteenth of Dhū al-Ḥijjah. His troops lodged in people’s homes and the populace suffered much harm at their hands within their private quarters.

[Then the Sultan wrote to the Caliph] (1) proposing a settlement, but the Caliph refused. He mounted with his army and fought the Turks, accompanied by only a small band of soldiers, yet the entire populace was with him, and many Turks were slain.

Soon ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī arrived from Wāsiṭ with a large force by boat (2) to assist the Sultan. When the Caliph learned of this he called for peace, and peace was concluded (3) between the King (4) and the Caliph. The King rejoiced greatly and apologized to the Caliph for what had occurred. At the beginning of the following year (5) he set out for Hamadhān because of an illness that had afflicted him.

In that same year (6) Ibn al-Jawzī delivered his first sermon from the pulpit, exhorting the people, being at that time thirteen years old. Present was Shaykh Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Yaʿlā al-ʿAlawī al-Balkhī, a Sunni (7), who taught him a few words and then had him ascend the pulpit to speak them. It was a day long remembered.

Ibn al-Jawzī (8) said: “The gathering that day was estimated at fifty thousand.” [Allah knows best] (9).

In that year also: Ṭughtikīn, the lord of Damascus, fought his Frankish enemies, killing great numbers of them and capturing immense wealth. Praise and bounty belong to Allah.