months, after which he asked to be relieved (1). The caliph, however, would not release him because of the favor he enjoyed with him, so he sought the intercession of his wife (2) Sit al-Mulūk with the caliph’s mother, who (3) held her in high esteem. His request was granted, and he moved to the judgeship of Ḥamāh out of his affection for the city—yet (4) he was reproached for that (5). He possessed many merits and composed elegant poetry, and [he died in Ḥamāh in the middle of Rajab—may Allah have mercy on him] (6).

ʿUbayd (7) Allah b. ʿAlī b. Naṣr b. Ḥumrah (8), Abū Bakr al-Baghdādī, known as Ibn al-Maristāniyyah (9), was one of the renowned men of letters. He heard hadith and gathered it; he was also a physician and an astrologer, knowledgeable in the ancient sciences and in the histories of peoples. He authored “Dīwān al-Islām fī Tārīkh Dār al-Salām,” arranging it into three hundred and sixty books, yet it never became well known. He likewise compiled the biography of Ibn Hubayrah. He used to claim descent from al-Ṣiddīq, so people criticized him for that, and someone (10) recited:
—from the wāfir metre—
Leave lineage alone; do not lay claim to Taym,
for mongrels arise only from purebred stock.
You have become a spurious son of Taym,
like Ḥayṣa Bayṣa pretending to belong to Tamīm.

Ibn Najā (11) the preacher (12)—ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm b. Najā, Zayn al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan al-Dimashqī, the Ḥanbalī exhorter—came to Baghdad, where he studied jurisprudence and heard hadith. He then returned to his hometown, Damascus (13), and later came back to Baghdad as an envoy on behalf of Nūr