and he transmitted a vast number of ḥadith, authoring al-Mufhim fī Gharīb Muslim (Clarifying the Obscure Expressions in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim) and other works ⦗1⦘. He was later appointed Friday-sermon preacher in Nishapur. An accomplished, talented, devout ḥāfiẓ—may Allah have mercy on him—he excelled in every field.

[Then the year 552 AH began]
The year opened while Muḥammad Shāh ibn Maḥmūd was besieging Baghdad. The populace and the troops loyal to the caliph al-Muqtafī fought with utmost ferocity; Friday prayer was suspended because of the warfare, and the turmoil was tremendous ⦗2⦘. Allah then brought relief when the sultan withdrew, as already noted ⦗3⦘ in the account of the previous year. Ibn al-Jawzī relates these events for this year in great detail ⦗4⦘.

In the same year a massive earthquake struck al-Shām. Countless people perished—Allah alone knows their number—and most of Aleppo, Hama, Shayzar, Homs, Kafr Ṭāb, Ḥiṣn al-Akrād, Latakia, Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān, Fāmiyah ⦗5⦘, Antioch, and Tripoli collapsed.

Ibn al-Jawzī says ⦗6⦘: “As for Shayzar, only a woman and her servant survived ⦗7⦘; all the rest perished. In Kafr Ṭāb not a single soul survived ⦗8⦘. At Afāmiyyah the citadel sank ⦗9⦘, and Tell Ḥarrān split in two, exposing sarcophagi and numerous houses at its core.

He adds: A great many of the Franks’ towns ⦗10⦘ were destroyed, and the walls of most Syrian cities crumbled. Indeed, a Qur’an school in Hama ⦗11⦘ collapsed upon the boys ⦗12⦘, killing every one of them, and not a single person ⦗13⦘ came to inquire after any of them.”