– Date of Composition –

No extant statement pinpoints the exact year in which this book was written, yet it can safely be placed between 730 AH and 740 AH. This window may be narrowed further by noting that Shaykh al-Islam died in 728 AH, on the twentieth of Dhu al-Qaʿdah. Many sections of the work show that its author did not set to writing immediately after the shaykh’s passing; rather, he spent some time gathering material and sources—drawn from the shaykh’s own books, the letters of his students, and the information, documents, and testimonies he reproduces. Among the clearest indications of this are the following:

• The discussion that enumerates the shaykh’s writings and details how they were preserved or lost. There he says: “I have witnessed occurrences beyond the ordinary in the safeguarding of his books, in collecting them, repairing what was damaged, and recovering what had gone astray. Were I to relate them, it would be astonishing, and any fair-minded person would realize that Allah has shown special care for him and for his words …” (1).

• His quotation of the treatise by Abū ʿAbd Allah Ibn Rushayq (d. 749 AH) describing and listing the shaykh’s works—a work composed after the shaykh’s death. I am inclined to think Ibn Rushayq wrote it at the request of certain persons, among them Shaykh ʿAbd Allah ibn Ḥāmid al-Shāfiʿī, who sent Ibn Rushayq a letter on this very matter after the shaykh’s demise (2).

• His mention of the shaykh’s adversaries and of the various punishments that befell them for the schemes they had devised against the shaykh—may Allah have mercy on him. Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī, while relating the ordeal