Shaykh Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī composed the following elegy for the Shaykh—may Allah sanctify his soul—(1):

1. O Death, seize whom you will—or spare whom you please; you have erased the very imprint of knowledge and devout restraint.
2. You have taken Shaykh al-Islam; the bonds of piety are undone, and the people of innovation are at ease.
3. You have veiled an ocean of exegesis, a mountain of learning, a venerable scholar—God-fearing, ever distant from worldly excess.
4. When he transmitted hadith, he was the trustworthy Muslim; when he debated, his brilliance flashed.
5. Should he enter the grammar of Sībawayh, every subtle meaning came forth, newly coined and precise.
6. In preserving lofty chains of transmission he stood beside Shuʿbah and Saʿīd al-Ḍabʿī.
7. In jurisprudence he was a mujtahid; in striving for Allah’s cause, steadfast and unshaken.
8. His generosity rivalled Ḥātim’s renown, and his detachment from gain echoed ʿAbd al-Qādir’s.
9. May Allah lodge him in the Gardens, while the finest robes of His grace continue to cover us through him.
10. There, beside Mālik, Imām Aḥmad, al-Nuʿmān, al-Shāfiʿī, and al-Nakhaʿī (2).
11. Ibn Taymiyyah has gone on, and his meeting with his adversary awaits the Day the Trumpet of Terror is blown.

Completed; they number eleven verses.