Tabaristan and Daylam were wild regions. The reason for his death was as follows: When Ismāʿīl al-Samanī defeated ʿAmr b. Layth and was victorious, Muhammad b. Zayd, thinking that Ismāʿīl would not cross his own border and that Khurasan would remain his, left his province and set out for Khurasan. Ismāʿīl, however, reached Khurasan before him and wrote him a letter, informing him to keep to his own province and not to encroach upon other territories. But Muhammad b. Zayd did not heed this warning and sent a military unit under the command of Muhammad b. Hārūn, who was acting as deputy for Rāfiʿ b. Harsama, against Ismāʿīl. When the two armies confronted each other, Muhammad b. Hārūn, by means of a ruse, fled from Ismāʿīl. Ismāʿīl’s soldiers pursued him in an attempt to capture him. The soldiers of Muhammad b. Hārūn turned back and were defeated. Ismāʿīl plundered the goods found in their camp. Muhammad b. Zayd was also severely wounded. For this reason, he died a few days later. His son Zayd was taken captive and sent to Ismāʿīl b. Ahmad. Ismāʿīl treated him with honor and ordered that gifts be given to him.
The Muhammad b. Zayd we are discussing was a virtuous and devout person who exhibited a fine style of governance in the country he ruled. However, he adhered to Shiʿism.
One day, two adversaries appeared before him, one named Muʿāwiya and the other ʿAlī. Muhammad b. Zayd said to them: “The judgment to be given between you is clear.” Muʿāwiya replied to him: “O emir, do not be deceived by our names. My father was among the leading and prominent figures of the Shiʿa. In order to get along with the Ahl al-Sunna (the People of the Sunnah) in our land, he gave me the name Muʿāwiya. This adversary of mine is the son of one of the greatest enemies of ʿAlī. His father gave him the name ʿAlī as a form of taqiyya (precautionary dissimulation) towards you.”
Upon this answer, Muhammad b. Zayd smiled and bestowed favors upon both of them.
Ibn al-Athīr said in his work "al-Kāmil": “Among the famous personalities who died in this year is Isḥāq b. Yaʿqūb b. ʿUmar b. Khaṭṭāb b. al-ʿAdawī. This person was the emir of Diyar Rabīʿa in al-Jazīra. He was succeeded by his son ʿAbdallāh b. Haysam b. ʿAbdallāh b. Muʿtamir.
Another of the famous personalities who died this year is ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Baghawī. He was a companion of Abū ʿUbayd Qāsim b. Sallām.
Mahdī b. Aḥmad b. Mahdī al-Azdī al-Muṣilī was also among the notables and died this year.”
According to the accounts of Ibn al-Athīr and Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, the wife of al-Muʿtaḍid, Qatr al-Nadā bint Khumārawayh b. Aḥmad b. Ṭūlūn, also died this year. According to Ibn al-Jawzī, Qatr al-Nadā died on the seventh of the month of Rajab of this year and was buried in the palace at al-Ruṣāfa.
Yaʿqūb b. Yūsuf b. Ayyūb b. Abū Bakr al-Mutawwaʿī is also among the famous personalities who died this year. He listened to hadith from Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal and ʿAlī b. al-Madīnī. Both Najjād and Khuldī heard and transmitted hadith from him. He had made it his daily practice to recite Sūrat al-Ikhlāṣ thirty or forty thousand times.
I say: Among the famous personalities who died this year is also Abū Bakr b. Abī ʿĀṣim, the author of works on the sunnah and various other treatises. His biography can be recounted as follows: