and you did such-and-such in such-and-such another place,’ until some people—(1) indeed, most of them—came to believe that he possessed (2) the gift of clairvoyance or that a jinni was bringing him that knowledge; Allah knows best.(3)

The Caliphate of al-Ẓāhir ibn al-Nāṣir(4)
When the caliph al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh died, he had already designated his son Abū Naṣr Muḥammad—whom he had entitled al-Ẓāhir—as heir-apparent, and the Friday sermons were delivered in his name. Later, however, he deposed him in favor of his brother ʿAlī, who died in their father’s lifetime in 612 AH. He therefore had to reinstate Muḥammad as crown prince, and the sermons were proclaimed for him a second time. When his father passed away, the pledge of allegiance was given to him as caliph. He was then fifty-two years old, and no one of the Banū al-ʿAbbās had ascended the throne at a more advanced age.(5) He was intelligent,(7) dignified, devout, just, and benevolent. He restored many confiscated rights, abolished certain tolls his father had imposed, and conducted the affairs of the people with fairness,(8)
so much so that it was said, ‘Had his reign lasted, none since ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz would have been more equitable.’ Yet he did not complete a full year; his caliphate lasted only nine months. He remitted the previous year’s land tax on fields that had fallen out of cultivation, and from the inhabitants of a single town—Baʿqūba(9)—he removed seventy thousand dinars that his father had added to their tax assessment. The official weight (sanaja)(10) kept in the treasury exceeded the local weight by half a dinar on every hundred: when revenue was collected it was weighed by the heavier standard, but when payments were made it was weighed by the lighter. The caliph therefore wrote to the dīwān: ‘Woe to those who give short measure,(1) who, when they take measure from the people, demand it in full,(2) but when they measure out for them or weigh for them, they defraud.(3) Do they not realize that they will be raised up(4) for a tremendous Day,(5) the Day when mankind will stand before the Lord of the worlds’ (al-Mutaffifīn 83:1-6).
One of the clerks wrote back to him, saying, ‘Commander of the Faithful, the difference between this year and last is thirty-five thousand.’ He sent a sharp reply: ‘Leave it be, even if the discrepancy were three hundred and fifty thousand.’ May Allah have mercy on him.