and he was held up as the very paradigm of mastery in the Shāfiʿī school. He authored a recognised legal wajh (1), produced numerous writings (2), and enjoyed great wealth and prestige; people travelled to him from every region.
Some ranked him even above Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid (3). He would say, “Baghdad has lifted him high, while Dīnawar has kept me low.” He uttered those words when a pupil once told him, “Master! The renown is Abū Ḥāmid’s, but the knowledge is yours.” (4 – 5)
Bandits killed him in Dīnawar on the night of the twenty-seventh of Ramaḍān, 405 AH. I have not been able to learn how long he lived.
105 – Ibn Abī Ḥadīd, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Sulamī*
The upright, trustworthy scholar and chief musnid of Damascus: Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn al-Walīd ibn al-Ḥakam ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd al-Sulamī, the Damascene. He was born in 309 AH.
He heard ḥadith from: Abū al-Dahdāḥ Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Kharāʾiṭī; Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Harawī; ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Salāmah; and, in Egypt, from Muḥammad ibn Bishr al-Zubayrī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Aḥmad al-Ājurrī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Qays, and others.