and Asbagh, one of our own teachers. People would make the journey to him, and Allah caused many to benefit through him. He was both ascetic and courageous. Al-Mustanṣir Billah offered him the post of judge, but he asked to be excused and the caliph relieved him of it. He was a jurist, unyielding in upholding the truth, and exceptionally scrupulous; in his day he was compared to Sufyān al-Thawrī. He was reliable and trustworthy, and it has reached us that he once stood alone against a contingent of polytheists (1).
He died at Qalʿat Ayyūb in al-Andalus in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, 383 AH, and was born in 320 AH.
329 – Aḥmad ibn Sahl ibn Ibrāhīm, Abū Ḥāmid al-Anṣārī
The venerable, long-lived shaykh Abū Ḥāmid al-Anṣārī of Nīshāpūr.
He was the last to transmit from Muḥammad ibn Shādil, Abū Quraysh al-Ḥāfiẓ, and others.
Those who received from him include al-Ḥākim, Abū Saʿd al-Kanjarūdhī, and a number of others.
Al-Ḥākim said, “His original copies are sound.”
He was counted among the noted men of letters, and the earliest documented date of his audition is 307 AH.
He passed away in Dhū al-Ḥijjah, 384 AH.
In that same year also died: Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAlī ibn Ghālib al-Tammār al-Miṣrī, companion of Muḥammad ibn al-Rabīʿ al-Jīzī; Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Hilāl al-Ḥarrānī, the Ṣābian polytheist man of letters, author of “The Brilliant Epistles”; and ʿAbd Allāh ibn