Among the elegies is one composed by Shaykh ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ibn Ghānim (1):
What a scholar has passed away, what an Imām!
The whole Muslim community was stricken by his loss.
It is Ibn Taymiyyah—the God-fearing, the Imām of the age (2),
The beauty-spot upon the face of Damascus.
An ocean of knowledge (3) that has now receded
After its bounty had overflowed and spread beneficence far and wide.
An ascetic, a devotee, who kept himself aloof
From every glittering trifle of this world (4).
A treasure-house for every seeker of knowledge,
And for anyone who feared falling into the unlawful.
To the destitute who came to him complaining of poverty,
With him they would attain every aspiration.
He possessed knowledge to which no one could lay an equal claim—
No scholar rivalled him, no peer matched him (5).
In all branches of learning and in every legal ruling (6)
He had no counterpart on the face of the earth.
(1) In manuscripts F and K this hemistich is replaced by: “and for the shaykh ʿAlaʾ al-Din Abu al-Hasan ʿAli ibn Muhammad ibn Sulayman [K: Salman] ibn Hamail ibn Ghanim al-Maqdisi—may Allah have mercy on him—concerning Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyya—may Allah be pleased with him.” The sequence of verses in F and K also differs from, and is longer than, that of the base copy. ʿAlaʾ al-Din Ibn Ghanim was a respected, generous notable who often satisfied people’s needs and was an accomplished poet; he died in 737 AH/1336 CE. His biography appears in Aʿyan al-Asr 3:496–502 and al-Durr al-Kamina 3:103.
(2) F reads: “wahid al-dahr” (the unique one of his age).
(3) F: “ʿilm(in) wa jud” (knowledge and generosity), while K has: “jud wa ʿilm(in)” (generosity and knowledge).
(4) The words between the two hemistichs are missing from the base manuscript; F supplies: “min kull …” (from every …).
(5) F: “nala ʿilman” (he attained knowledge); the base manuscript reads: “mimma lahu …” (from that which he possesses …).
(6) F, K, and T read: “fi-l-baraya fi-l-fadl wa-l-ahkam” (among mankind in virtue and legal rulings). Their marginal note also records the reading adopted here. The other manuscripts have “al-dunya” (the world); this has been emended to preserve the metre.