—in this same year Shaykh Abū Shujāʿ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Shuʿayb ibn al-Dahhān, the Baghdadi expert in farāʾiḍ (laws of inheritance), arithmetic, and historiography, passed away.

He had come to Damascus and praised Shaykh (1) the Kindite, Abū (2) al-Yaman Zayd ibn al-Ḥasan, saying (3):

[from the Baṣīṭ metre]
“O Zayd, may my Lord still enlarge for you His gifts—
blessings that even the loftiest hope falls short of grasping.
May Allah never exchange the state with which He has favored you,
though grammarians debate the states (ḥāl) and the substitutes (badal).
In grammar you are the worthiest of all who know it:
is not your very name the standard cited in every example?” (4)

Then the year 593 AH began.

In that year a letter arrived from al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil to [Qāḍī Muḥyī al-Dīn] (5) ibn al-Zakī informing him that on the night of Friday, the ninth of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, a formidable storm broke forth: layers of deep darkness, lightning that stabbed like daggers, and raging winds. The sky therefore grew heavy (6) and the blasts became fierce, reins loosed from every quarter clashed (7) and thunderous peals rose (8). Walls quaked and rattled; though far apart they seemed to meet and embrace. Between heaven and earth a choking dust cloud billowed—people said it was as though one sky had crashed upon another (9). One could imagine nothing but that a torrent had spilled from Hell itself, that ʿĀd had charged forth once more (10). The gale intensified until it snuffed out the lamps of the stars, rent the fabric of the sky, and erased every trace that had been inscribed upon it (11).

We were, as Allah the Exalted says, “They thrust their fingers into their ears against the thunder-claps” [Qur’an 2:19]. We added: and they shield their eyes against the flashes. There was no protector from the blinding darts, no refuge from this calamity save the strongholds of istighfār (seeking forgiveness). Men, women, and children all took flight; they fled their homes light and heavy alike, powerless to devise any plan and unable to find the way.