The first source consists of a number of eminent contemporaries of Shaykh al-Islam.

His quotations from them reach him by several routes:

– At times he clearly identifies the place from which he copied. Thus he cites al-Dhahabi from a marginal note in the latter’s own hand on the book “Rafʿ al-Malām ʿan al-Aʾimmah al-Aʿlām” (p. 15); Ibn al-Zamlakani from his marginalia on “Bayān al-Dalīl ʿalā Buṭlān al-Taḥlīl” (p. 14); and al-Barzali from “Muʿjam Shuyūkhih” (p. 19).

– At other times he gives only the scholar’s name, yet by comparison we are able to identify his source. He quotes al-Dhahabi in the following places (pp. 9, 33, 35, 168), and these extracts come from the latter’s epistle “al-Durra al-Yatīmiyyah fī al-Sīra al-Taymiyyah” (1). He cites Ibn Sayyid al-Nas al-Yaʿmarī (pp. 16–19) from “Ajwibat Ibn Sayyid al-Nas ʿalā Suʾālāt Ibn Aybak al-Dumyāṭī.” He draws upon al-Barzali (pp. 253, 332, 334, 335, 353, 444) through “al-Muqtafī li-Tārīkh Abī Shāma”; the last entry, however, is not found in the printed edition of Abu Shama’s work, which ends at 721 AH. He also cites Abū ʿAbd Allah Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Rushaiq al-Māliki on pp. 39, 42, 107 from his epistle “Asmāʾ Muʾallafāt Shaykh al-Islām” (2); the final quotation is likewise absent from the printed version of Ibn Rushaiq’s book, for that edition is incomplete, as we pointed out in the Introduction to al-Jāmiʿ.

– Occasionally he merely names the scholar, and we are unable to determine the exact work he is quoting from. Such is the case with his citations from Ibn al-Najjar