and set out for Hamadhān in Rabīʿ al-Awwal (1) of the year 552 AH. The armies that had accompanied him in the provinces dispersed, and after this fighting (2) a severe epidemic and widespread mortality struck the populace; many quarters of Baghdad were consumed by fire, and the ordeal lasted for two full months.
In the same year: Abū al-Badr (3), the son of the vizier Ibn Hubayra, was released from the citadel of Tikrīt, where he had been imprisoned for three years. People came out to greet him halfway along the road, and poets sang his praises; among them was al-Ablaḥ (4) the poet, who recited before the vizier a qaṣīdah that began:
“With what tongue shall the tale-bearers reproach me,
when they know I kept vigil while they slept?”
He went on to say:
“They begrudge me from you even a single night of union,
though a year has passed in estrangement—and another year besides.”
The vizier was delighted, bestowed his own robe upon him, and granted him fifty dinars.
Qaymāz led the people on the pilgrimage that year.
Among the notable deaths: ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn, Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ghaznawī (5), the preacher. He enjoyed great acceptance among the common folk. The khātūn, wife of the caliph al-Mustazhir, built for him a ribāṭ (hospice) at Bāb al-Azaj and endowed it with generous waqf properties, bringing him great prestige. The sultan visited him. He was eloquent, graceful in admonition, and vast crowds from every class attended his gatherings.
(1) Edition: “He set out from Baghdad toward it in Rabi‘ al-Awwal.”
(2) Edition: “That.”
(3) In manuscripts A and B it reads “Abu al-Walid al-Badr,” and the printed edition likewise gives “Abu al-Walid al-Badr.” In the biographical sources he is Zafar ibn Yahya ibn Muhammad ibn Hubayra, known as Abu al-Badr; Ibn Khallikan calls him Sharaf al-Din Abu al-Walid Muzaffar, and in his own marginal gloss he appears as Abu al-Badr Zafar. He served as his father’s deputy in the vizierate, was a man of letters, a poet, and a scholar. He was imprisoned for years in Tikrit Castle during his father’s lifetime, then released; upon his father’s death he was arrested again and remained in prison until his death in 562 AH. (Al-Muntaẓim, vol. 10 pp. 165, 220; Khuraydat al-‘Iraq, vol. 1 p. 101; Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 6 p. 242; Fawāt al-Wafayāt, vol. 2 p. 141)
(4) “Al-Ablah the poet” is Muhammad ibn Bakhtiyar ibn ‘Abd Allah, known as Abu ‘Abd Allah; a Baghdad poet who composed verse without scholarly learning. He died in 579 AH (some authorities say 580 AH). His biography appears in Mir’at az-Zaman (p. 242), al-Rawdatayn (vol. 2 p. 54), Wafayāt al-A‘yān (vol. 4 p. 463), Mukhtaṣar Abī al-Fidā’—Wafayāt (p. 579), al-Mukhtaṣar al-Miḥtāj ilaih (vol. 1 p. 28), al-Muḥammadūn (p. 235), al-‘Ibar (vol. 4 p. 38), and Mir’at al-Jinān (vol. 3 p. 416).
(5) His biography is also found in al-Muntaẓim (vol. 10 pp. 166–168), Ibn al-Athīr (vol. 11 p. 216), and Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 11 p. 33).