“al-Furāwī had a thousand transmitters,” and it was further said that this was engraved on his signet ring. He had the Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim read aloud nearly twenty times. He died in Shawwāl of this year at the age of ninety—may Allah have mercy on him (1).

Then the year 531 AH began.

In that year, sudden death spread through the region of Isfahān; thousands of people perished and many houses were shut up—may Allah be pleased with them (2).

That same year the caliph married the khātūn Fāṭimah, daughter of Muḥammad ibn Malikshāh, settling upon her a dowry of one hundred thousand dinars. Her brother, Sultan Masʿūd, attended the contract along with a number of leading figures of the state, ministers, and commanders, and all kinds of largesse were scattered among the crowd.

Also that year the people of Baghdad fasted the full thirty days of Ramaḍān and still did not sight the new crescent on the night of the thirty-first, even though the sky was perfectly clear. Ibn al-Jawzī (3) remarked, “Nothing of this sort had ever happened.”

In the same year the vizier of the ruler of Egypt—Tāj al-Dawlah Bahrām, a Christian—fled. He had long exercised great power in the land and governed badly, so the Fāṭimid Caliph al-Ḥāfiẓ pursued him until he seized him, imprisoned him, and then released him; Bahrām thereupon became a monk and abandoned public office (4). After him, the caliph appointed Riḍwān ibn al-Walakhshī (5) as vizier, bestowing upon him the title al-Malik al-Afḍal, a designation no vizier had ever received before (6). Later discord arose between him and Caliph al-Ḥāfiẓ (7); the caliph kept after him until he killed him (8) and thereafter managed affairs single-handedly.

During that year as well, ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī seized several territories (9).

In the same year there appeared (10) over al-Shām a black cloud that plunged the world into darkness; after it came a red cloud, like fire, that illuminated the horizon. A violent wind then blew, toppling many trees, followed by a torrential downpour and large hailstones.