north to Mosul and tried to enter the employ of Nasir al-Dawla, but he turned them away. As a result, they turned to Ibn Ra'iq, who used the opportunity to recover his old post (23 September). In November, however, Tuzun and other Turkish leaders mutinied against Ibn Ra'iq and deserted him for the Baridis. This increased the latter's strength an emboldened them to march on Baghdad: on 7 March 942 the Baridi troops fought their way into the city, while Ibn Ra'iq and the Caliph withdrew north to seek the aid of the Hamdanids. Now master of the capital, the head of the Baridi family Abu'l-Husayn appointed Tuzun as sahib al-shurta of the eastern half of the city, across the Tigris. Baridi rule soon proved unpopular, however, as the plunder of his undisciplined Daylamites was coupled with a sharp rise in prices and stifling taxation. Tuzun and the other Turks conspired to seize Abu'l-Husayn, but was betrayed by Nushtakin, and his attack on the Baridis' palace was repulsed by the forewarned Daylamite troops. Tuzun then abandoned Baghdad and with many of the Turks marched north to Mosul. Strengthened by these defections, the Hamdanids marched south onto Baghdad, which the Baridis abandoned. This was followed by the murder of Ibn Ra'iq by the Hamdanids (11 April 942) and the accession of Nasir al-Dawla to the post of amir al-umara a few days later. Tuzun in turn was rewarded with the post of sahib al-shurta of the capital on both sides of the river. The Baridis continued to challenge the Hamdanid position from their base in Wasit, however, and Tuzun was one of the commanders of the army sent against them under Nasir al-Dawla's brother Ali, better known by his laqab of Sayf al-Dawla. In a hotly contested battle near al-Mada'in that lasted from 16 to 19 August 942, the Hamdanid and Turkish troops routed the Baridis, who abandoned Wasit for their original base of Basra. Sayf al-Dawla occupied Wasit, but by the spring of 943, the Turkish troops and their leaders, chiefly Tuzun and Khajkhaj, had become restless and mutinous due to delays in their pay, while, according to Ibn Miskawayh, Sayf al-Dawla tried to win them over for his own designs on Syria by slighting his brother. In the end, on the night of 7 May 943, the Turkish troops attacked Sayf al-Dawla's encampment and set fire to it. The