Machine summary:
As' for the Sahib, he began his career as a petty writer in the service of Abul-Fadl ibn al-tArnid, Wazir to the Buwayhid Rukn al• Dawla, father of the princes referred to above.
Fakhr al-Dawla , however, seems to have accepted everything in a good spirit and realising the importance of the Sahib the Buwayhid domi• nion, insisted on his stay by saying, "In this kingdom you have as much a right to the lVitara as we have to the Imara and the usual course for each of us is to preserve his own rights.
The Tatima has it on record that on one occasion Fakhr al- Dawla plucked up courage to pass a jesting remark on the Sahib's Mu'tazili belief.
7 ' In Muharram 378/April 988, the Sahib presented to Fakhr al-Dawla a dinar weighing one thousand mitltqals, on one side of which was a poem in praise of Fakhr al-Dawla and on the other the Sura lkhlas, the title· of the Caliph al-Ta/i" and the title of Fakhr al-Dawla.
"> But the best genius among the clients of the Sahib appears to have been Abu Dulaf al-Khazraji, who like the Sahib himself, was an expert in 'the slang of the Persians' ( 0L...
Besides those whom we have mentioned as being directly patronised by the Sahib, men of letters like the Sharif al-Radi al-Musawi, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim lbn Hilal al-Sabi, Ibn al-Hajjaj and al-Salami were also reci• pients of occasional favours from him for which they also eulogised h im.