Sulaym al-Rāzī related: “At the very beginning of his life Abu Ḥāmid served as a night watchman in a lane, poring over his books by the guards’ oil-lamp, and he was already issuing fatwas when he was just seventeen years old.” (1)

Al-Khaṭīb (2) said: “Abu Ḥāmid died in Shawwāl of the year 406 AH; the day of his funeral drew a great crowd. He was first buried in his own house, then, four years later, his body was transferred and laid to rest at Bāb Ḥarb—may Allah have mercy on him.”

Those who passed away the same year were: Bādīs (3) ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥimyarī, the ruler of the Maghrib; the Sufi master Abū ʿAlī al-Daqqāq (4); the Qurʾanic exegete Abū al-Qāsim al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb (5); Ḥamzah ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Muhallabī (6); the Meccan shaykh ʿUbayd Allah ibn Muḥammad al-Saqaṭī (7); the Baghdadi scholar of inheritance law Abū Aḥmad ibn Abī Muslim al-Farāḍī (8); Abū al-Faraj ʿUthmān ibn Aḥmad al-Burjī in Isfahān; and the leading theologian Abū Bakr ibn Fūrak (9).