234 – Ibn Qurayʿa, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Baghdādī
The judge, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Baghdādī, nicknamed al-Ẓarīf, was the judge of Sindiyyah (1).

He was jocular, light-hearted, a cultured man of letters, gifted and sharp, with lightning-quick replies.

He studied under Abū Bakr ibn al-Anbārī and others.

Qurayʿa is written with a qāf; Ibn Mākūlā so recorded it.

He was a constant companion of the vizier al-Muhallabī at gatherings of entertainment.

He produced eloquent, silence-inducing rejoinders. The vizier would urge the dignitaries to debate him, and they would spar with him in conversation.

A certain notable once wrote to him: “What does the judge say about a Jewish man who fornicated with a Christian woman and she bore a son whose body is human but whose face is bovine?”

He answered: “This is one of the fairest witnesses against those vile Jews: they imbibed the calf into their hearts until it emerged from their hind parts. Therefore, let the calf’s head be fastened (2) to the Jew’s head, and let the head (3) and the leg be hung about the Christian woman’s neck; then drag them both along the ground while it is proclaimed over them, ‘Layers of darkness, one above another.’”

He died in 367 AH.