The lions—the very lions of the jungle—turn their mettle, on the day of peril, toward the man who is being despoiled, not toward the spoils themselves.
So Binyāmin’s servants took custody of the poisoner, slew him, and burned his body. Afterwards the caliph arrested the vizier Ibn Mahdī (1) as noted above.
Ḥanbal ibn ʿAbd Allāh (2) ibn al-Faraj ibn Saʿādah al-Raṣafī (3), the Ḥanbalī who proclaimed the takbīr in the Mahdī Mosque, transmitted the Musnad of Aḥmad from Ibn al-Ḥuṣayn (4), who took it from Ibn al-Mudhahhib (5), who received it from Ibn Mālik (6), from ʿAbd Allāh, from his father. He lived to the age of ninety. Leaving Baghdad, he had the work read to him in Irbil; the kings of Damascus later summoned him, and there the people heard the Musnad from him (7).
Al-Muʿaẓẓam showed him great honor and would dine with him at a richly laid banquet, where Ḥanbal often suffered indigestion, for he was a poor man of straitened means (8) who had led a rough life in Baghdad. Whenever al-Kindī entered upon al-Muʿaẓẓam he would ask about Ḥanbal, and al-Muʿaẓẓam would say, “He is dyspeptic.” Al-Kindī would respond, “Feed him lentils,” and al-Muʿaẓẓam would laugh. He then bestowed a large sum of money on Ḥanbal and sent him back to Baghdad, where he died in this same year. He had been born in 510 AH. Ibn Ṭabarzad accompanied him, outliving him until 607 AH.
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿĪsā (9) ibn Abī l-Ḥasan al-Buzūrī (10), the Baghdadi preacher.
(1) In manuscript A: Ibn Mahdi al‐Wazīr.
(2) Biography of al‐Rusāfī al‐Ḥanbalī in Tarīkh Ibn al‐Athīr (12/116); al-Takmila li-Wafayāt al-Naqqāla (2/125); Dhayl al-Rawdatayn (p. 62); Tarīkh al-Islām (13/92–93); Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (23/431); al-‘Ibar (5/10); al-Nujūm al-Zāhira (6/195); and Shudhūrāt al-Dhahab (7/24).
(3) In manuscript A: al-Wusāfī—a corruption. Al-Mundhirī explains that the al-Rasāfa in question is the one near Baghdad (al-Takmila li-Wafayāt al-Naqqāla 2/126).
(4) The biography of Ibn al-Ḥuṣayn was given above under the year 525.
(5) Biography of Ibn al-Madhhab in the obituary entries for the year 444.
(6) In manuscript T: “from Abū Mālik”; in manuscript B: “from Mālik.”
(7) In manuscript T: it reads “bi-hā ‘alayh.”
(8) In manuscript T: “He was poor and emaciated on account of eating little coarse food.”
(9) Biography of Ibn al-Buzūrī in Ikmāl al-Ikmāl by Ibn Nuqṭa (1/401); Tārīkh Ibn al-Dubaythī (Paris MS 5922, fol. 123); Mirʾāt al-Zamān (8/537); al-Takmila li-Wafayāt al-Naqqāla (2/137); Dhayl al-Rawdatayn (p. 62); al-Jāmi‘ al-Mukhtaṣar by Ibn al-Saʿī (9/249); Tarīkh al-Islām (13/97); al-Mukhtaṣar al-Muḥtāj ilayh (2/208); Dhayl Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila by Ibn Rajab (2/41); Shudhūrāt al-Dhahab (5/17); and others (Bishr).
(10) In manuscript T: “al-Mirwazī,” which is a corruption; in al-Buzūrī: the nisba is spelled with a kasra under the bā’ followed by zā’ and rā’ after the wāw. This nisba “al-Buzūrī” (from al-Buzur) was noted by Ibn Nuqṭa in Ikmāl al-Ikmāl (1/401).