The Khurasani ghazis at Rayy, 355 AH

Among the events of 355 AH, Miskawayh in Tajarib al-umam tells of a great army that came from Khurasan to Rayy, its men professing to be ghazis, of what they plotted against the Daylamis, and of how the tables turned on them after they had gained the upper hand. ¹ Miskawayh tells it as an eyewitness, being then in the service of Ibn al-Amid, vizier of Rukn al-Dawla.

News reached Rukn al-Dawla at Rayy of a host from Khurasan, estimated at twenty thousand, professing to be ghazis. The frontier commander Isfuzan ibn Ibrahim distrusted them, since their conduct was not that of ghazis and they had no single leader, each town's men having their own chief. ¹ Ibn al-Amid advised that they not be allowed in all together, but some two thousand at a time, each group replaced as it left; Rukn al-Dawla refused, saying kings should not say of him that he took precautions against a rabble from Khurasan; Ibn al-Amid then urged him to recall his troops scattered in the Jibal and Isfahan, and he refused that too. ²

They camped at Rayy with a great elephant, and their leaders met in Ibn al-Amid's council asking for money; he thought a little would satisfy them, but they demanded the land-tax of all the provinces, saying it had been levied for the Muslims' treasury against emergencies, and no emergency was greater than the Byzantines' and Armenians' designs on their frontiers. ² They asked for an army to go with them and raised their voices; they had jurists with them. ³ Getting nowhere by words, they turned on the Daylamis, calling them unbelievers and cursing them; in Ramadan they went out armed at night, claiming to command the right, and stripped the common people of their kerchiefs and turbans. ³

A quarrel broke out with some of Ibrahim ibn Babi's men; a Daylami was killed, about a thousand ghazis gathered at Ibrahim's gate, and fighting raged until night parted them. ³ Then they entered the city from the quarter of Ibn al-Amid's house; he rode out against them and was speared in the forearm; his house and stores were plundered, but his library alone was spared. It was in Miskawayh's charge, and when Ibn al-Amid asked about it and was told it was untouched, he was relieved and said that the other stores could be replaced, but this one could not. ^{4 5} Rukn al-Dawla had five hundred of his commanders and close men and some three hundred slave soldiers; on Wednesday, the middle of Ramadan, the Khurasanis spread to the city gates, attacked from every side and made for the government palace. ^{5 6} The courtyard was so crammed with mules laden with treasury chests that Rukn al-Dawla could only get out after several chests were broken; Miskawayh says "I was with the party", and the editor notes that this sentence comes from Miskawayh's own memoir. ⁶

The Daylamis lost heart at their enemies' numbers, so Rukn al-Dawla had the grooms gallop towards the road by which Ali ibn Kama was expected and raise the dust; the people cried "Allahu akbar, here is Ali ibn Kama!", the Daylamis charged, and the Khurasanis broke. ⁷ He relates that a group of them in the city were slaughtering anyone they found in Daylami dress and crying "God is greatest" "as is done to unbelievers in the land of unbelief", until Rukn al-Dawla proclaimed safe-conduct. ⁷ He then let them leave and freed their prisoners, their prestige gone; Miskawayh comments that had they gone on with the standing they once had, they would have achieved much against the Byzantines. ⁸

Miskawayh heard Ibn al-Amid say afterwards that he had never seen a fiercer people, that nothing broke them but their many leaders and their mutual envy, and that they had missed chances: the day they entered Rayy and filed past the emir's gate with no one guarding it, and the night they entered the city, the bright moonlit night of mid-month. ⁸