Muhammad ibn Yahya ibn ʿAli ibn Muslim, Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Zabidi (1):
His birth (2) was in the city of Zabid in Yemen, around (3) the year eighty. He came to Baghdad in 509 AH, where he preached. He possessed knowledge of grammar and literature, was long-suffering in poverty and never complained of his condition to anyone, and he enjoyed upright spiritual states. May Allah have mercy on him, and Allah—glorified and exalted—knows best.

[Then the year 556 AH began]
In that year:
The sultan Sulayman Shah (4) ibn Muhammad ibn Malikshah was killed. He was reckless (5) and paid little heed to religion; he was addicted (6) to drinking wine even in Ramadan. The steward of his realm, the eunuch Kurdabazu (7), rose against him, slew him, and the people then pledged allegiance to Sultan Arslan Shah ibn Tughril ibn Muhammad ibn Malikshah.

In the same year:
King al-Salih, Fāris al-Din Abu’l-Gharāt Talāʾiʿ ibn Ruzzīk (8) the Armenian—[vizier of al-ʿĀḍid, the ruler of Egypt, and the father of his wife; he had placed al-ʿĀḍid under tutelage because of his youth] (9)—had monopolized power. The palace entourage killed him, whereupon his son Ruzzīk took up the vizierate and was given the honorific al-ʿĀdil. His father al-Salih had been generous and cultured, loving the people of knowledge and treating them kindly. He (10) was among the best of kings and viziers, and more than one poet and man of letters extolled him.

Qadi Ibn Khallikan (11) said: “He was first governor of Minyat Bani Khasib; then his circumstances advanced until he became vizier to al-Fāʾiz (12). The vizierate of ʿAbbas was taken from him in 549 AH. When he died in this very year, his son al-ʿĀdil Ruzzīk ibn Talāʾiʿ succeeded him as vizier, and he remained in office until Shawar wrested it from him, as will be mentioned later.”