He studied jurisprudence under Abū al-Walīd al-Naysābūrī (1) and, while in Iraq, under Ibn Abī Hurayrah. He died on a Friday in the month of Rajab, 388 AH, at the age of seventy-two.

369 – Al-Ḥātimī, Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Muẓaffar *
The foremost authority on language and letters, Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Muẓaffar al-Baghdādī, the scribe. He studied with Abū ʿUmar al-Zāhid and with several others. Among his writings is al-Risālah al-Ḥātimiyyah (2), in which he recounts what passed between him and al-Mutanabbī, exposing the poet’s plagiarisms, the blemishes of his verse, and his folly and arrogance. He relates that he went to him, feigning simplicity, and then asked, “How are you?”

I answered, “Well—had I not wronged myself by seeking you out and branded my own worth with the mark of humiliation that this visit entails. Now, sir, explain to me the source of your pride and swagger: what has occasioned it? Is there a lineage here whose train you have seized, a sovereignty whose power you wield, or a branch of knowledge for which people single you out? Had you measured yourself by its true measure, you would have admitted that you are nothing more than a poet.”