al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah Abd Allah ibn al-Qadir
Abbasid caliph [422–467], Abu Ja'far Abd Allah ibn al-Qadir, born 391 to an Armenian mother; Ibn al-Athir praises his beauty, piety, learning and unstinted answers. Al-Basasiri seized him in 450 and jailed him at Ana — his letter to God was hung on the Ka'ba. Restored, he slept only on his prayer-mat, kept fasting and night-prayer, forgave all who wronged him, bought back his looted goods at price saying 'we have counted them with God', never again laid head on pillow; no instrument of amusement was found in his sacked palace.
Reign · Abbasid Caliphate · no. 1 in the chain · 1031–1075 CE
Ruled the caliphate
Events of the reign
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Abu Kalijar Enters Baghdad and the Kettledrums Are Beaten for Him
In 436 Sultan Abu Kalijar entered Baghdad, and the kettle-drums were beaten for him at the five prayer-times — an honour struck for no one before him except three times.
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The death of al-Qadir and the accession of al-Qa'im bi-amr Allah, 422
The caliph al-Qadir bi'llah died on the night of Monday 11 Dhu'l-Hijja 422, aged eighty-six years, ten months and twenty-one days, having reigned forty-one years and three months, a span no caliph before him had reached. The doors were shut; then al-Qa'im bi-amr Allah came out at the time of 'asr, led the people in the maghrib prayer, prayed over his father with four takbirs, and sat in the Dar al-Shajara in a shirt and mantle. The people gave him bay'a, first among them al-Sharif al-Murtada, and on the next day Abu Ahmad al-Hasan ibn Isa ibn al-Muqtadir came and gave bay'a too. The Turks clamoured over the bay'a money; when a Hashimite killed a Turk, a signed decree of the caliph was issued on the matter, and it was settled that the bay'a be levied at three million dinars. Among his well-known displays of tact, he put up a caravanserai, a garden and a heap of goods for sale to meet it. He gave titles to the viziers and chamberlains and arranged the offices of state.
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The diwan manifesto impugning the Ubaydid genealogy
In 444 manifestos were drawn up at the diwan recounting Egypt's ruler and his forebears in terms impugning the genealogy they claim — denying their descent from the Prophet through Ali and Fatima, attributing them instead to the Daysaniyya of the Magians and the Qaddahiyya of the Jews, and declaring them outside Islam, as had been done in al-Qadir's days — and the signatures of the ashraf, qadis, witnesses and scholars were taken upon it.
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The Baghdad attestations impugning the lineage of the Ubaydids
In 444 records were drawn up in the diwan of the caliphate at Baghdad, mentioning the lord of Egypt and his predecessors with statements that impugn the lineages they claimed. Their connection to the Messenger of God, to Ali and to Fatima was denied, and their descent was attributed to the Daysaniyya among the Magians and the Qaddahiyya among the Jews; it was also said that they had left Islam. The attestations of sharifs, judges, witnesses and scholars were taken to this effect, and something similar had happened in the days of al-Qadir.
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The earthquake of Antioch and Latakia
In 455 an earthquake struck Antioch, Latakia and a tract of the Roman lands; in Dhu'l-Hijja Wasit shook for a long while, and plague in Egypt took near a thousand funerals a day.
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The Fatimid rebuilding of al-Aqsa after the 1033 earthquake
The earthquake of 1033 devastated Jerusalem; the Fatimid caliph al-Zahir rebuilt the Aqsa between 1034 and 1036 and the work was completed under al-Mustansir in 1065. It is the mosque Nasir-i Khusraw described in 1047: shrunk to seven aisles with brilliant mosaic decoration, a triumphal arch bearing a royal inscription in gold mosaic, and most of the central part of the present mosque dates from that rebuilding.
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Atsiz ibn Uwaq's campaign against Syria
Atsiz ibn Uwaq's Seljuk campaign into southern Syria — Ramla and Jerusalem taken from the Fatimids, Ascalon holding out — bringing the Abbasid sultanate to Jerusalem's gates.
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The Bab al-Tibn shrine exhumed and the Sammakin gate battle
In Safar 443 the Sunni–Shi'i war resumed over the 'wa-Ali khayr al-bashar' inscription on the new Sammakin gate; water was cut to Karkh until a waterskin sold for a qirat, and rosewater was mixed into public troughs. The Darzijani 'ayyar al-Tuqtuqi stormed the Taq al-Hurrani stronghold, beheaded two men and raised the heads on the new mosque's wall, then crucified two more on the gate after killing three, hurling their heads into Karkh with 'have your heads for breakfast'. The city rose: the Bab al-Tibn shrine was seized and looted, corpses — the 'Awfi, al-Nashi' and al-Judhu'i among them — were dragged out and burned or reburied elsewhere, the teak domes torched, the Hanafi jurists' khan in Qati'at al-Rabi' sacked, and at last Baratha's khutba returned with 'hayya ala khayr al-amal' dropped and al-Abbas named.
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The Shawwal Earthquake of 450
On 18 Shawwal 450, between sunset and nightfall, a great earthquake held a long moment — houses fell, terror spread, and reports traced it in a band from Baghdad to Hamadan, Wasit, 'Ana and Tikrit, with millstones stopping mid-turn; a month later al-Qa'im was driven from his palace. The same year opened with giant hail, one stone weighed at thirty-three dirhams, and a fifteen-cubit Tigris rise.
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Sunni-Rafida Strife in Baghdad in 422
In Rabi' I 422 the strife between the Sunnis and the Rafida in Baghdad broke out again. It began when al-Khazraji, a Sufi known as al-Madhkur, went to the city's main mosque to read a decree from the caliphal residence, and common people shouted the names of Abu Bakr and Umar before him, saying 'this is a day of raids.' The people of Karkh opposed them and pelted them, the fighting spread, prayer was halted, and the house of al-Murtada was breached until his Turkish neighbours rescued him. The Samsamiyya was burned, and the houses and khanqahs of the Jews were plundered, on the report that they had helped the people of Karkh. The next day the common Sunnis assembled, joined by many Turks, marched on Karkh and burned and demolished its markets. The caliph al-Qadir wrote to al-Malik and to the Isfahsalar condemning this in the strongest terms and ordering the legal penalty for the offenders. Burned in the strife were the Bride Market, the Carpet Market, the Coppersmiths' Market, the Cloth-Beaters' Market and the silk quarters; the Friday mosque of Baratha was raided at night, its mats and rugs taken and its iron windows torn out. Then the people of Nahr Tabaq, al-Qala'in, Karkh and Bab al-Basra fought one another, and on the eastern bank the people of the Arms Market, the Tuesday Market, Bab al-Taq and the cobblers, the market of Yahya, al-Rahadhira, al-Furda and Darb Sulayman. The bridge was cut to separate the two sides; 'ayyarun entered the city, and plunder by day and sacking by night increased.
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Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi dies at Isfarayin and is buried beside his teacher, 429/1038
When Abu Mansur reached Isfarayin its people rejoiced at his coming beyond description, but he stayed only a little while before dying in 429; the people of learning agreed to bury him beside the master Abu Ishaq, and their two graves stand side by side; Ibn al-Najjar's history gives 427, which al-Subki calls a scribal error, and Ibn Shakir transmits 420.
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The battle of al-Basasiri and the sermon for the Ubaydi al-Mustansir in Baghdad
Arslan al-Basasiri grew so mighty he was preached on the minbars and the caliph decided nothing without him; when his ill creed proved out and his plan to sack the palace surfaced, al-Qa'im wrote secretly to Tughrul Beg at Rayy. Tughrul came in 447; al-Basasiri fell back to Rahba, took the Egyptian al-Mustansir's money and the treacherous brother Inal's distraction. In 450 he entered Baghdad under Egyptian banners — the khutba went to al-Mustansir at the Mansur mosque, 'hayya ala khayr al-amal' entered the adhan — and seized the caliph in Dhu'l-Hijja, jailing him at Ana; the caliph's letter to God was hung on the Ka'ba. Tughrul killed Inal, had the caliph returned in honour on 25 Dhu'l-Qa'da 451, and al-Basasiri's head reached Baghdad.
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Battle of al-Funaydiq
Draft card for the Battle of al-Funaydiq in 1060, the Fatimids' defeat by Banu Kilab and Banu Numayr; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Battle of Caesarea
Draft card for the raid on Caesarea in 1067, the Seljuk Turks' descent on the Palestinian coast under Alp Arslan; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Byzantine–Seljuk War
Draft card for Byzantine–Seljuk War; its sources are not yet checked on the page.
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Marriage of the caliph's daughter to Tughrul Beg
In 454 al-Qa'im gave his daughter to Tughrul Beg after resisting every way, shaken and begging release — an honour no Buyid king ever won for all their coercion. Tughrul came in 455, entered with the caliph's daughter, restored the inheritances and the makus, farmed Baghdad for a hundred and fifty thousand dinars, and died at Rayy in Ramadan.
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Fall of Damascus to Atsiz
Damascus fell to Alp Arslan's commander Atsiz in 1075 and the Abbasid khutba was proclaimed — the Seljuk realm reaching its greatest extent from Afghanistan to Asia Minor.
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Death of al-Mawardi at Baghdad, Rabi' I 450/1058
Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad al-Mawardi died at Baghdad in Rabi' I 450 — on its 30th, 27 May 1058 per the EI2 — aged eighty-six, and was buried at the Bab Harb cemetery. He died eleven days after the qadi Abu al-Tayyib al-Tabari; none of his works had been brought out in his lifetime — he bequeathed them at his death, and their story came out afterwards.
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Death of al-Shaykh al-Tusi at Najaf, Muharram 460/1067
Abu Ja'far al-Tusi, shaykh and scholar of the Shi'a, died at the blessed Mashhad of Ali in Najaf in Muharram 460/1067 (EI2 gives 459 or 460 ); he was buried there, and the Shaykh al-Tusi mosque by the shrine's north gate — Bab al-Tusi — holds his tomb.
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Al-Qadir's rescript imposing distinguishing dress on the dhimmis
At the end of Rajab 429 the ashraf, qadis, witnesses, jurists and notables were assembled at Bayt al-Nawba, the Nestorian katholikos and the Jewish Ra's al-Jalut were summoned, and the caliph's rescript was read: recalling the bounds the Rashidun caliphs had laid on the dhimmis — distinction, humility and separateness from the Muslims — it ordered all dhimmis to alter their outward dress into what would mark them on sight, their neglect having let them assimilate to Muslim dress.
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Earthquake at Ramla and the sea's recession, 425
In 425 a black wind tore through Nisibis uprooting orchards and throwing down a masonry palace, hail fell in shapes like hands, pillars and fingers, an earthquake ruined half of Ramla, villages were swallowed, part of the wall of Bayt al-Maqdis fell and Ascalon's congregational-mosque minaret collapsed, and the sea drew back some three farsakhs before returning to take people who had gone out gathering fish and shells.
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The general famine and plague of 448
In 448 Egypt saw severe drought and rampant plague while Iraq was awash with strife, fear and looting from Tughril Beg's bands, the Bedouin and al-Basasiri; famine and pestilence struck until people ate carrion — a makuk of clover seed reached seven dinars, a pomegranate a dinar — and a report from Egypt told of three thieves found dead mid-burglary, one at the door, one on the stairs, one on the folded clothes.
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Al-Qadir bans dealing in Maghrebi dinars
In 427 the caliph al-Qadir ordered an end to dealing in 'Maghrebi' (Fatimid-struck) dinars, and instructed the court witnesses not to attest any deed of sale, licence or loan naming that coin; people accordingly shifted to the Qadiriyya, Nisaburi and Qashani dinars.
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The Ghuzz enter Mosul and plunder Qarwash's palace
In 435 the Ghuzz entered Mosul, seized Qarwash ibn al-Muqallad's harem quarters and ruined them; after his appeal reached the caliph, Qarwash and Dubays ibn Ali ibn Mazyad combined and inflicted a great slaughter on the Ghuzz — and the khutba at Baghdad went to the Buyid Abu Kalijar. The Ghuzz had plundered over 200,000 dinars from Qarwash's palace.
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The Thieves' Dominion over Baghdad
From 424 Baghdad fell to the 'thieves' — robbing openly, killing the police dragmen, taking ten thousand dinars' worth from one merchant — until the emir Burjumi, famed for never sparing a woman nor letting anyone take from her, hunted them down; by 426 the robbers were eating openly in Ramadan and held Baghdad in all but name.
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The recantation of Abu'l-Wafa' Ibn 'Aqil
On Wednesday 10 Muharram 465, Abu'l-Wafa' Ali ibn 'Aqil — the most learned Hanbali of his age — appeared at the diwan with the Hanbali elders and made peace, writing out in his own hand a recantation: renouncing the doctrines of the innovators and the Mu'tazila, the keeping of their company and veneration of their imams, declaring unlawful all he had written of their teaching — including his treatise on the Night Journey ('a company of men said they are black bodies') and his profession of Hallaj's saintliness ('he was killed by the consensus of the jurists of his time and they were right; he erred') — witnessed by a great company, after which he went to make his peace with Sharif Abu Ja'far.
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The ghilman's seizure and humiliation of Jalal al-Dawla, 424
In Ramadan 424 the ghilman gathered at the mosque of al-Qahramana to lodge a complaint. Some of them found the gate of the garden of the royal residence open and went in. The king came out saying, 'Come, let me hear what you have to say'; they seized him, dragged him to the Tigris and put him in a samiriyya boat that nearly capsized, mocking him as they did. Then they left him standing in the sun, confined him in a mosque, and moved him to the house of al-Mahalibiyya. Abu'l-Wafa' al-Qa'id came to his aid with about twenty ghilman and crossed to al-Karkh, to the house of Jamil belonging to al-Sharif al-Murtada. The ghilman wrote to him: 'We are your slaves and your mamluks; we made you king over our affairs from the start.' He dealt with them tactfully, and by night he won over the junior amirs, who came to al-Murtada's house kissing the ground and apologising; they mounted him and said, 'Jalal al-Dawla is our king and we are his troops.' He accepted Abu'l-Qasim as vizier.
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The ghilman's expulsion of Jalal al-Dawla from Baghdad, 423
The ghilman swore to depose Jalal al-Dawla and cancelled the khutba in his name on Friday, 3 Rabi' I 423. They dismissed his concubines and demanded that he go down to Wasit; 100 ghilman went down with him, then only 20. He fled on the night of Monday, 6 Rabi' I, to Akbara, and the royal residence was plundered. He wrote to the isfahsalar Abu Kalijar, inviting him, but Abu Kalijar replied cautiously, asking for 500 ghilman. Jalal went to al-Hilla, prostrated himself before Kamal al-Dawla Abu Sinan, gave him his daughter in marriage and promised him treasures. Abu Sinan interceded for him, and his khutba was restored on 17 Rabi' I in the congregational mosques of the city and al-Rusafa, and then in the caliph's mosque on the third Friday. In Shawwal he drank wine in a garden of the caliph's residence; al-Qa'im reproached him, and he apologised.
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Al-Juwayni at Baghdad in the vizier al-Kunduri's company, c. 448/1056
When affairs were thrown into disorder by the ordeal, al-Juwayni was forced to leave Nishapur for the army camp and then Baghdad, where he kept company with the vizier Abu Nasr al-Kunduri for a time, travelling with him and meeting and disputing the great scholars in his presence until he grew seasoned, polished and famous; Ibn Aqil reports from Amid al-Mulk that Abu al-Ma'ali once came and questioned Abu al-Qasim ibn Burhan on whether God's servants have acts of their own, and Ibn Burhan was silenced by the proof.
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The gate-building war between Karkh and al-Qala'in
In Sha'ban 441 the people of Karkh began a wall over the Anmat market with a gate facing Sammakin; the Sunnis of Qala'in answered with a rival wall and gate of their own — and the building turned into a civic spectacle: Turks funded the Qala'in side with money and mules, a barge of bricks came with a brocade canopy, Karkh carried bricks on men's heads preceded by drums and mimes, rosewater was sprinkled into the foundations, and a woman stripped off her brocade jukaniyya and gave it to the building. On 'Id al-Fitr the feud broke into wounds and killings, the Sunnis raised a roofed market and a mosque between the two gates called Bab al-Mas'ud.
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The Karkh–Sunni reconciliation and joint pilgrimage to the two shrines
In 442 the quarter-factions united against the police chief Ibn al-Naswi, vowing to burn their own markets and quit the city if he crossed; the hostility dissolved into an extraordinary truce — Karkh prayed at the Sunni Qala'in gate with 'hayya ila khayr al-amal' answered by 'al-salatu khayrun min al-nawm', Karkh invoked mercy on the Companions, and in Dhu'l-Hijja the two communities marched together to the shrines of Ali and Husayn, the Sunni black banner bearing the caliph's name beside Karkh's gilded standards, Turks and Sunnis joining a pilgrimage they had never attended before, while onlookers scattered dirhams over them.
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Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi dies and is buried beside Bishr al-Hafi, 7 Dhu al-Hijja 463/1071
Al-Khatib fell ill at Baghdad in mid-Ramadan and worsened at the opening of Dhu al-Hijja; he appointed Abu al-Fadl ibn Khayrun his executor, made his books a waqf in his hands and gave away all his money in charity and to the hadith folk, and died in the fourth hour of Monday 7 Dhu al-Hijja 463. He was carried out the next morning to the west side; the qadi Abu al-Husayn ibn al-Muhtadi bi-llah led the prayer with four takbirs, and he was buried at Bab Harb beside Bishr al-Hafi, in the grave that Abu Bakr ibn Zahra' the Sufi had prepared for himself and yielded; the imam Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi was among those who carried the bier.
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Al-Khatib leaves Baghdad for al-Sham after the Basasiri fitna, 451/1059
Al-Khatib left Baghdad for al-Sham in 451, as conditions fell into turmoil after the Basasiri fitna, and stayed in al-Sham until Safar 457. Ibn al-Jawzi relates that he went into hiding, then left Baghdad for al-Sham — Damascus, Tyre, Tripoli and Aleppo.
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Al-Khatib's hajj, with hearings in al-Sham and Mecca, 446/1054
Al-Khatib journeyed to al-Sham as a pilgrim and heard at Damascus, Tyre and Mecca; at Mecca he met Abu 'Abd Allah al-Quda'i, and he read the whole of Sahih al-Bukhari in five days upon Karima al-Marwaziyya before returning to Baghdad. His own Tarikh records that he heard Ibn Burhan at Tyre on his way back from the hajj of 446.
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Al-Khatib returns to Baghdad; the Tarikh is heard at the Nizamiyya, Dhu al-Hijja 462/1070
In 462 al-Khatib made for Tripoli, then Aleppo, then Baghdad by way of al-Rahba, dictating hadith at Aleppo and elsewhere on the road, and entered Baghdad in Dhu al-Hijja. He had wished for two things — to return so that his Tarikh might be heard from him complete at Baghdad, and to die there and be buried beside Bishr — and the Baghdadis heard the book from him at the Nizamiyya madrasa.
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Al-Khatib's preaching disputation at Tripoli, c. 447/1055
Al-Khatib entered Tripoli on his way back from the hajj, about 446–447, and held a disputation in the art of preaching with the qadi al-Husayn ibn Bishr, holder of Tripoli's Dar al-'Ilm; al-Karajaki (d. 449) recorded it in his rihla, from whom Ibn Abi Tayy transmitted it, then Ibn Hajar in Lisan al-Mizan.
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Al-Khatib settles at Tyre and visits Jerusalem, 457/1065
Al-Khatib moved from Damascus to Tyre, residing there from Safar 457, and would visit Jerusalem and return to Tyre, until the year 462.
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Death of Abu Kalijar and investiture of al-Malik al-Rahim
Abu Kalijar fell ill in Jumada I 440, was bled three times in the open country, and died on the Thursday night of Ramadan; the ghilman plundered treasuries, arms and mounts while his slave-girls burned the tents over his bier. His son Abu Nasr was acclaimed al-Malik al-Rahim and rode to the caliphal palace, kissed the earth, was robed in the seven-piece black investiture with the Rusafi turban, collar, two jewelled swords and gem-set crown, two bound standards presented, the patent of investiture read over his chest, and was counselled to piety and justice — then rode the caliph's own tayyar back to his camp to receive congratulations.
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Al-Mawardi's embassy to Abu Kalijar at al-Ahwaz over the laqab, 423/1032
In 423 AH the caliph al-Qa'im bi-amr Allah sent the qadi Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi with a letter to the king Abu Kalijar at al-Ahwaz. Al-Mawardi narrates in the first person that they went ahead of him, received him and lodged him; when the proposed laqab 'al-Sultan al-Mu'azzam' came up he said it could not be, for the Greatest Sultan is the caliph — and likewise 'Malik al-Umam' — so they turned to 'Malik al-Dawla', which he allowed as possible on condition that the service to the caliph be performed first, and it was done; he returned carrying twenty thousand dinars, twenty-five thousand dirhams, robes and perfumes. The EI2 counts it the first of four political missions the caliph al-Qa'im entrusted to him in 422, 428, 434 and 435.
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Al-Mawardi carries the caliph's rescript to Jalal al-Dawla over the Jawali, 434/1042-3
In 434 AH the Jawali was opened in early Muharram, and the king Jalal al-Dawla sent men to bar the caliph's servants from it and seize what they had collected. This weighed on the caliph al-Qa'im, and his rescript went out to Jalal al-Dawla with al-Mawardi as the messenger — 'the rescript went out from the caliph and I was the messenger', he says — censuring his breach of oaths and repudiation of what he had covenanted over the Jawali. The EI2 counts it the third of his four missions.
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Al-Mawardi awarded the laqab aqda'l-qudat, 429/1038
In 429/1038 the qadi al-Mawardi was awarded the honorific laqab 'aqda'l-qudat' (supreme qadi), in spite of the opinions of eminent jurists — Abu al-Tayyib al-Tabari among them — who denied the legality of the title. Ibn al-Jawzi already calls him by it in the same year's account of the 'Shahanshah' laqab fitna: 'it is related of aqda'l-qudat Abu al-Hasan al-Mawardi'.
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The Founding of the Nizamiyya in Baghdad
In 459 Baghdad's Nizamiyya school was finished; Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi was named its teacher, but when the people gathered he had hidden — Ibn al-Sabbagh taught till they coaxed al-Shirazi to accept. Al-Dhahabi reports Nizam al-Mulk built it — 'said to be the first school built for the jurists'.
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The Great Earthquake of Palestine in 460
In 460 a great earthquake struck Palestine and beyond: it killed fifteen thousand of Ramla's people, toppled two pinnacles of the Prophet's mosque, split the earth over hoards of treasure, split the Rock of Jerusalem then closed again, and drove the sea a day's march from the shore — crowds went out gathering on the exposed seabed until it returned and destroyed many; the quake was felt as far as al-Rahba and Kufa.
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The Great Plague and Famine
The great plague-and-famine of 448–449: wheat at 90 then 180 dinars the kurr in Baghdad, a thousand deaths a day, the sultan shrouding 18,000 corpses at his own expense four and five to a bier; a Transoxianan merchants' letter counting 18,000 funerals in a single day and 1,650,000 dead before the ink dried — graves dug for twenty at a time, markets empty, the poor eating dogs and exhuming the dead, and a general repentance of wine-pouring and instrument-breaking.
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The death of al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah and the accession of al-Muqtadi
In Safar 467 the caliph al-Qa'im fell gravely ill, his throat swelling; dying, he wrote the heirship for his grandson Abdallah ibn Dhakhirat al-Din. Al-Muqtadi was acclaimed Friday 13 Sha'ban 467 in the Dar al-Shajara in a white shirt and fine white turban — the first to swear was Sharif Abu Ja'far, who had given him bay'a at the caliph's washing before the people, quoting 'when a lord among us passes, a lord arises'; the bier was borne on the tayyar with weeping but no wailing, prayed over with four takbirs and buried in the caliph's own chamber of retreat. Al-Qa'im's caliphate had run forty-five years and some months; and when Malikshah later turned on al-Muqtadi demanding he quit Baghdad, the caliph asked ten days' respite — and the sultan died on the tenth day.
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The return of al-Qa'im from Haditha to Baghdad
The caliph al-Qa'im's restoration after a full year of al-Basasiri's rule: Mihrash the 'Uqaylid of Haditha refused to surrender him, Tughril sent Amid al-Mulk with three hundred ghilman, fourteen Bactrian camels of tents and furnishings and a gold-plated litter; at the Nahrwan pavilion the sultan dismounted, walked, and kissed the ground seven times, while the caliph brought out the Buyid mountain of red yaqut and twelve large pearls. Tughril begged pardon for his delay — 'my jealous brother Ibrahim; I strangled him with his own bowstring' — and the caliph girded on him the only sword saved from his flight. The caliph entered Monday 25 Dhu'l-Qa'da 451, Tughril seated on the gatekeeper's bench at Bab al-Nubi until the procession passed; only the chief qadi and three witnesses were left in Baghdad to receive him.
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The marriage of al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah to Tughril Beg's sister
In 448 the caliph al-Qa'im bi-Amr Allah married Tughril Beg's sister; al-Qa'im's position was secured and the caliphate magnified by Tughril's sultanate.
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Al-Qushayri at Baghdad, teaching hadith in the caliph al-Qa'im's palace, 448/1056
Al-Qushayri's wanderings in the ordeal reached Baghdad, where he came before the caliph al-Qa'im bi-amr Allah and was received with favour: a session was held for him in the caliph's own residence, in his presence and under his eye, and a decree of honour was issued for him — the Encyclopaedia of Islam dates al-Qa'im's commission to teach hadith in the palace to 448/1056.
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Al-Qushayri's first hadith dictation sessions, 437/1046
Al-Qushayri made the Pilgrimage in the company of Abu Muhammad al-Juwayni — father of Imam al-Haramayn — and other eminent Shafi'is, hearing hadith at Baghdad and in the Hijaz on that journey; probably after his return to Nishapur he held his first majalis al-imla', the hadith dictation sessions, in 437/1046, the year his own madrasa is recorded.
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The great earthquake of Ramla
The great Jumada I 460 earthquake in Palestine destroyed Ramla outright — a merchant's letter says the town was swallowed whole; the sea recoiled so far its floor lay bare and people walked on it before it returned, and one corner of the mosque in Egypt shifted.
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The Shahanshah laqab controversy
In Ramadan 429 the laqabs 'Greatest Shahanshah, King of Kings' were proposed for Jalal al-Dawla and the caliph ordered the khutba with them; the crowd pelted the khatib with bricks and a fitna broke out. The jurists wrote opinions — al-Saymari and Abu'l-Tayyib al-Tabari permitting, al-Mawardi refusing — whereupon Jalal cut him off, then received him warmly on the feast day, telling him that only religion had moved him and that it had raised his standing in the king's heart.
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Al-Shirazi composes al-Luma', al-Tanbih and Tabaqat al-fuqaha, c. 450-453/1058-1061
About 450/1058 al-Shirazi composed his manual of usul al-fiqh, al-Luma'; between 452/1060 and 453/1061 he wrote the fiqh epitome al-Tanbih, which drew more than seventy commentaries; and about 452/1060 he composed Tabaqat al-fuqaha, one of the oldest surviving works of its genre, recording the mujtahid jurists of all schools before tabaqat literature narrowed to a single madhhab.
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The start of al-Shirazi's teaching in the mosques of Baghdad, 428/1036
In 428/1036 Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi's long teaching career began, first in various mosques of Baghdad and then, from 459/1066, in the Nizamiyya madrasa built for him by Nizam al-Mulk; the biographers portray him as gentle, refined and affable, living a life of asceticism, and 'a lion of the disputatio'.
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Al-Shirazi writes al-Muhadhdhab, 455-469/1063-1077
Between 455/1063 and 469/1077 al-Shirazi wrote his great fiqh compendium al-Muhadhdhab fi fiqh al-imam al-Shafi'i which — with al-Tanbih — became one of the five reference works of the Shafi'i school and drew a vast critical apparatus, among it al-Nawawi's eighteen-volume al-Majmu' sharh al-Muhadhdhab; in it the brilliant controversialist gave way to a genuine mujtahid establishing his own doctrine.
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Smallpox and epidemic deaths, 422–425
The deaths ran on for four years. In 422 rain came late, bodies dried out, coughing and sickness multiplied, to the point that the sale of broth boomed. In 423 the epidemic spread over India, Ghazna, Khurasan, Jurjan and al-Rayy; forty thousand were buried in Isfahan within a few days, and in the land of al-Jibal, while four thousand boys died of smallpox in Mosul, and smallpox swept Baghdad from April to October so that no house was spared. In 424 smallpox befell the caliph himself when he entered the bath, and he was lifted out of it. In 425 death multiplied, especially among women in al-Hawaniq, and it was said that in Dhu al-Hijjah seventy thousand died in Baghdad.
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Restoration of the Sunni Adhan in Karkh and Restrictions on the Shi'a
After Tughril Beg's takeover, the Sunni adhan 'al-salatu khayrun min al-nawm' was imposed on the shrines of the Quraysh cemetery, the 'Atiqa mashhad and the mosques of Karkh, 'hayya ila khayr al-amal' was stripped, the door-inscriptions torn down, and Sunni chanters entered from Bab al-Basra praising the Companions; the Bazzazin shaykh Ibn al-Jallab was executed and crucified over his shop, and the Shi'i theologian Abu Ja'far al-Tusi fled — his house stormed in Safar 449, his books, teaching chair and the pilgrims' three white mangonels burned in Karkh.
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Tughril Beg's Entry into Baghdad
Tughril Beg's entry into Baghdad (1055): the Buyid grip broken, the caliph al-Qa'im's grand reception, the title Sultan Rukn al-Din on coinage and minbars, and the double marriage alliance that sealed Seljuk-Abbasid ties.
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Investiture of Tughril as King of the East and West by Caliph al-Qa'im
In Dhu'l-Qa'da 449, the full investiture of Sultan Tughril by the caliph al-Qa'im: the caliph seated on a seven-cubit silk couch with the Prophet's mantle on his shoulder and the staff in his hand, Tughril kissing the ground at each approach, mounted on a lower couch, addressed 'O Ali' through the ra'is al-ru'asa' — 'Amir al-Mu'minin has invested you with all the lands God gave him: fear God, spread justice, restrain wrong.' Seven robes in one rite, a sword girded by the caliph's own hand, the style 'king of East and West', three standards with the liwa' al-hamd bound by the caliph himself, the investiture-patent read over him — and Tughril twice kissing the outstretched hand and laying it on his eyes.
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Storming of al-Tusi's Karkh house and his refuge in Najaf, Safar 449/1057
In Safar 449 the Karkh house of Abu Ja'far al-Tusi, the Shi'i's theologian, was stormed: his notebooks, the chair on which he sat to teach, and three white mangonels that Karkh pilgrims used to carry to the Kufa visitation were all taken out and burned in the Karkh market. Al-Tusi took refuge in Najaf and stayed there until his death, teaching a limited circle of disciples including his son Abu Ali al-Hasan, who succeeded him.
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Al-Tusi succeeds al-Murtada as head of Baghdad's Shi'a, 436/1044
On al-Sharif al-Murtada's death in 436/1044 he was succeeded by al-Tusi, though eminent former pupils of al-Mufid like al-Najashi, al-Karajaki and Abu Ya'la al-Ja'fari were still alive; by then al-Tusi had already amassed an impressive bibliography and the support of numerous Buyids and of the caliph al-Qa'im, who appointed him to the capital's most prestigious chair of theology. Heir to the great Imami libraries — Sabur ibn Ardashir's Dar al-Ilm of over 100,000 works and al-Murtada's own of nearly 80,000 — he composed some fifty books and his Karkh house was for more than a decade the virtual intellectual centre of Imamism.
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the Umayyad Mosque fire of 461
The Umayyad Mosque burned in mid-Sha'ban 461: Badr al-Jamali had arrived from Egypt and fighting broke out between the easterners and westerners, who torched houses adjoining the mosque until the fire reached it; the combatants dropped the feud to fight the flames. Al-Imad al-Katib and al-Safadi described the blaze.