Then came the year 540 AH.
In that year:
• ʿAlī ibn Dubays laid siege to his brother Muḥammad and persisted until he wrested al-Ḥillah from him and seized it.
• In Rajab the Sultan Masʿūd entered Baghdad (1) for fear that ʿAbbās, the ruler of Rayy, might join forces with Muḥammad Shāh ibn Maḥmūd; he left the city again in Ramaḍān.
• The pilgrimage was led by Qaymāz al-Urjūwānī (2), a mamluk of Amīr al-Juyūsh Naẓar, because of the clash that had occurred the previous year between Naẓar and the Emir of Mecca.
Among the eminent figures who died this year were:
• Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān, Abū Saʿd al-Iṣfahānī, later of Baghdad (3). He studied hadith, followed the way of the salaf, and was pleasant-mannered and unpretentious. At times he would go to the marketplace wearing nothing more than a shirt and a skullcap. He performed the pilgrimage eleven times, dictated hadith, and fasted frequently. He died in Nahāwand in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of this year, having nearly reached eighty years of age.
• ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Aḥmad, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Yazdī (4). He studied jurisprudence under Abū Bakr al-Shāshī, heard hadith and transmitted it. He and his brother owned only a single shirt; when one of them went out he wore it (5) while the other stayed at home (6), and then they would alternate (7).
• Mawhūb ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Khaḍr, Abū Manṣūr al-Jawāliqī (8).