Naysābūr; his sessions of audition throughout the lands were numerous, and he occupied the foremost rank in literature—his poetry being outstanding. (1)

ʿAbd al-Ghanī (2) said about his nisba (family name): “It is al-Ghamrī—with the letter ghayn—and he read to us al-ʿAjlī’s Tārīkh.”

al-Ḥasan ibn Shurayḥ said: “He is actually ʿUmari, but when he came to Ifrīqiyah he added a dot to the ʿayn so he could remain safe. He was my tutor, and he told me, ‘When I return to al-Andalus I shall turn that dot into a ḍammah.’ ”

I say: he did this out of fear of the ʿUbaydid state.

al-Khaṭīb (3) remarked: “He was trustworthy, reliable, widely-traveled, and had many audition sessions.”

Ibn ʿAsākir said: “Zāhir reported to us; Aḥmad ibn Manṣūr reported to us; al-Walīd ibn Bakr reported to us; ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Khaṣīb in the Maghrib reported to us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Rushdaynī in Egypt reported to us; and Khushaysh ibn Aṣram reported to us.”

Aḥmad ibn Salāmah informed us, from Abū al-Makārim al-Labbān; ʿAbd al-Ghaffār ibn Shīrawayh informed us; Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Karmānī narrated to us; and al-Walīd ibn Bakr the grammarian recited to me, from his own composition:

For which of your calamities will you not take heed,
And what would it cost you if you would reflect?

Here there is weeping, there a departure;
A corpse is borne away and a grave is dug.