al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī al-Qāsim al-Lāmishī (1) was a native of Samarkand. He transmitted hadith and studied jurisprudence, and people cited him as the very model of a skilled debater. Upright and devout, he followed the path of the early generations, avoided affectation, and enjoined what is right. He returned from the Khāqān, the ruler of Transoxiana, bearing an embassy to the caliphal court. Someone asked him, “Will you not perform the pilgrimage this year?” He replied, “I will not make the pilgrimage an appendage to their embassy.” He therefore went back to his homeland and died there in Ramadan of this year at the age of eighty-one—may Allah have mercy on him.

Tughtikīn the Atabeg (2), the Turkish ruler of Damascus, was one of the mamluks of Tāj al-Dawla Tutush ibn Alp Arslān the Seljuk. He ranked among the best and most just of kings and was one of those who waged the greatest number of campaigns against the enemy. He died in this same year, and his son Tāj al-Mulūk Burī succeeded him to the throne.

[Then the year 523 AH began.]

In Muḥarram of that year (3) Sultan Maḥmūd entered Baghdad and strove to obtain the caliph’s favor (4) for Dubays and to cede to him the lands of Mosul. The caliph refused and rejected the request most emphatically; [for him] that (5) was impossible (6).

Meanwhile Dubays delayed his entry into Baghdad; when at last he came in, he rode among the people, and they cursed and reviled him to his face.

ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī [ibn Āq Sunqur] (7) then arrived. He offered the sultan one hundred thousand dinars every year along with gifts and presents, and he undertook to give the caliph (8) the same amount on condition that Dubays be given no appointment and that Zangī remain in charge of Mosul. The sultan confirmed him in that post.