He came to Baghdad, took up teaching at the Niẓāmiyya, and restored classes there. Well-versed in the Qurʾānic readings, he authored a book on the articulation points of the letters, transmitted hadith, and composed graceful poetry.

Abū Bakr ibn Ḥulbah al-Mawāzinī al-Baghdādī was unrivaled in the science of geometry and the making of balances; he devised astonishing things—among them that he bored seven holes in a single poppy seed and set a hair in each hole. He enjoyed high favor with the ruling authorities.

Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Aḥmad (1) ibn Muḥammad, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Dubaythī (2), the merchant from Wāsiṭ, was a distinguished shaykh and man of letters, adept in both poetry and prose, knowledgeable in history and biography. He possessed many fine books and produced a three-volume commentary on a poem by Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maʿarrī. Ibn al-Sāʿī cites verses of his that are eloquent, melodious, pleasing to the ear, and delightful to the heart.

[Then entered the year 622 AH]

In that year: when the Khwarazmians, driven from India by the Tatars, arrived with Jalāl al-Dīn ibn Khwarazm Shah in Khūzistān and the surrounding districts of Iraq, they wrought havoc there, besieging its towns and plundering its villages (3).

And in the same year: Jalāl al-Dīn ibn Khwarazm Shah seized Azerbaijan and much of Georgia. He routed the Georgians, though they numbered seventy thousand fighters, killing twenty thousand of them; his power swelled and his prestige grew enormously. He captured Tbilisi and slew thirty thousand of its inhabitants. Abū Shāmah claims (4) that he killed seventy thousand Georgians in the battle and a full one hundred thousand in Tbilisi. (5) Because of this campaign he was diverted from marching on Baghdad. Earlier, when he had besieged Daqūqah, its people reviled him; he therefore took it by force (6), killed many of its inhabitants, and demolished its wall. He then resolved to march against the caliph in Baghdad, alleging that the caliph had brought about his father’s death and that the Tatars (7) had thereby conquered the realm. He wrote to al-Muʿaẓẓam ibn al-ʿĀdil, inviting him to fight the caliph and urging him on, but al-Muʿaẓẓam refused. And when the caliph learned of Jalāl al-Dīn ibn Khwarazm