And al-Ḥāfiẓ Fath al-Dīn Abū al-Fath (2) Ibn Sayyid al-Nas al-Yaʿmarī al-Miṣrī (3) said (1)—after recording the biography of our shaykh, the ḥadith master Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Mizzī:

“He is the one who impelled me to meet the shaykh, the Imām, Shaykh al-Islām, Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm ibn ʿAbd al-Salām (4) Ibn Taymiyya. I found him to have attained a distinguished share of knowledge; indeed, he had all but encompassed the sunnah and transmitted reports by heart. If he spoke on tafsīr, he carried its banner; if he issued a fatwa in fiqh, he reached its furthest limits; if he discoursed on ḥadith, he was its authority and foremost transmitter (5); and if he addressed the subject of sects and religions, no one (6) was seen whose knowledge in that field was broader or whose comprehension was loftier.

He outstripped the people of his generation in every discipline: the eye of anyone who saw him never beheld his equal, nor had his own eye seen anyone comparable to himself. When he lectured on tafsīr, vast crowds flocked to his gathering, drawing from the sweet, crystal-clear ocean of his knowledge and grazing in the springtime meadows and streams of his bounty—until the disease of envy crept up from the people of his own town. Those among them given to scrutiny (7) fastened upon whatever (8) in his doctrinal statements they could criticise; they collected his words on those matters, showered him with blame because of them, and notched their arrows to brand him an innovator