In the same year:
The ruler of Yemen, the son of Sayf al-Islam, died, whereupon ⦗1⦘ the amirs unanimously invested Sulayman ibn Shahnshah ibn Taqi al-Din ʿUmar ibn Shahnshah ibn Ayyub with authority over the country. Al-ʿAdil then wrote to his son ⦗2⦘ al-Kamil, ordering him to send his own son Akhsīs ⦗3⦘ there. Akhsīs went, took control, and proceeded to oppress the people, commit atrocities, and act with brazen brutality; he slew some eight hundred members of the ashraf, and the number of others he killed ⦗4⦘ was far greater. He was among the most depraved of kings, notorious for his flagrant immorality and utter lack of shame ⦗5⦘. Reports are related about him ⦗6⦘ that make one’s skin crawl and one’s heart recoil—we ask Allah for protection.
Among those who died this year were:
• Ibrahīm ibn ʿAlī ⦗7⦘ ibn Muḥammad ibn Bakrūs, the Hanbali jurist. He had issued fatwas, debated, and been judged upright by the qāḍīs, but then he abandoned all of that and became a police officer at Bāb al-Nūbī ⦗8⦘, beating people and harming them to the utmost. Later he himself was beaten until he died; his body was thrown into the Tigris ⦗9⦘, and the populace rejoiced at his demise. His father had been a righteous man.
• Al-Rukn ʿAbd al-Salām ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ⦗10⦘, son of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir.
(1) Printed as “Sahib al-Yaman wa tawallaha” (“Lord of Yemen who governed it”). According to the supplement to al-Rawdatayn (note 86), “Ibn Saif al-Islam” refers to al-Malik al-Nasir Ayyub ibn Tughtekin, the ruler of Yemen. He died by poisoning in 611 AH at the hands of his atabeg, Ghazi ibn Jibril. (Tarwih al-Qulub, p. 58; Zambaur, vol. 1, p. 152.)
(2) Printed as “waladuhu” (“his son”).
(3) Manuscripts A and B read “that he send his son Aqses ibn al-Kamil to her.” He is Akhsis, son of al-Malik al-Kamil Muḥammad ibn al-Malik al-Adil Abū Bakr—nicknamed al-Malik al-Mas‘ud. The common folk called him Aqses, a corruption of Akhsis, because when al-Kamil had no offspring, some Turks in our lands used the term akhsis (literally “he who has no name”) for a man without a son, and so he was named. As he grew, the public found “Akhsis” difficult to pronounce and altered it to Aqses. He died in 626 AH in Mecca and was buried in the al-Ma‘la cemetery. (al-Nujūm al-Zāhirah, vol. 6, pp. 210–211, 272; Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 5, pp. 78–79.)
(4) Printed as “wa amma man ‘adahum” (“and as for those besides them”).
(5) Printed as “ḥayā’ wa dīnan” (“modesty and piety”).
(6) Printed as “dhakaru” (“they mentioned”).
(7) For the biography of Ibn Bukrūs, see: Mirʾāt al-Zamān (vol. 8, pp. 570–571); al-Takmila li-Wafayāt al-Naqqāla (vol. 2, pp. 495–496); supplement to al-Rawdatayn (pp. 87–88); Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 13, p. 311); al-Mukhtaṣar al-Muḥtāj ilayh (vol. 1, p. 233); supplement to Ibn Rajab (vol. 2, pp. 69–70).
(8) Printed as “al-nawa” (“saltpeter”).
(9) This is what Abū Shāma recorded, and al-Dhahabī transmitted it in Tārīkh al-Islām. The assertion that he was thrown into the Tigris is unreliable. Ibn al-Dubaythī in his history (folio 263 of Paris ms. 5921), al-Mundhirī in al-Takmila, and Ibn Rajab in his supplement (vol. 2, p. 70), among others, state that he was buried in the Bab Abriz cemetery. As Ibn Rajab observes: “Abū Shāma seized upon Ibn Bukrūs as an occasion for critique, writing at length and revealing some of his own biases against him and his peers.” (Bashar)
(10) For the biography of al-Rukn al-Jīlānī, see: al-Kāmil by Ibn al-Athīr (vol. 9, p. 308); Mirʾāt al-Zamān (vol. 8, p. 571); al-Takmila li-Wafayāt al-Naqqāla (vol. 2, p. 303); supplement to al-Rawdatayn (p. 88); Mukhtaṣar Abī al-Fidā’ (vol. 3, p. 122); Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 13, p. 315); Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalā’ (vol. 22, p. 155); Fawāt al-Wafayāt (vol. 1, p. 571); supplement to Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila (vol. 2, pp. 71–73); Shadharāt al-Dhahab (vol. 7, p. 83).