and hacked him to pieces. (1)

(2) Nothing of him reached the people save a few scattered remnants. They also killed a number of his followers, among them Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sukaynah. (3) The assassins were then seized and burned alive—may Allah curse them. (4)

Mounted couriers carried the news throughout the provinces, (5) and there was no town whose inhabitants were not more grief-stricken over the caliph al-Mustarshid than those of any other. The people of Baghdad felt it most keenly: the women poured into the streets, wailing and lamenting him. Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī (6) has preserved the lamentations they chanted for the caliph—may Allah have mercy on him.

His death (7) occurred at the Gate of Marāgha on Thursday, the seventeenth of Dhu al-Qaʿdah; thereafter his body was conveyed to Baghdad. (8) When the report of his death was confirmed in the capital, three days of public mourning were held for him after allegiance had been given to his son al-Rāshid.

A brief biographical notice (9) of al-Mustarshid:

He—may Allah have mercy on him—was courageous, forward-looking, and of lofty ambition; eloquent and articulate, pleasant in speech and graceful in delivery; possessed of a fine hand in calligraphy and of precise expression, (10) beloved alike by commoners and notables. He was the last caliph to be seen delivering the sermon himself.

He was slain—may Allah have mercy on him—at the age of forty-three years and three months, (11) and his caliphate lasted seventeen years, six months, and twenty days. His mother was an umm walad of Turkish origin, may Allah have mercy on him.