191 – Muḥammad ibn Asad ibn ʿAlī, Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baghdādī*
The imām, Qurʾān reciter, master of calligraphy, and foremost of the mujawwidīn (those who perfect the craft) in Iraq—Abū al-Ḥusayn (1) al-Baghdādī, the cloth-merchant, the scribe, and the teacher of Ibn al-Bawwāb.
He received ḥadīth from Jaʿfar al-Khuldī and Abū Bakr al-Najjād.
Al-Khaṭīb transmitted from him and said, “He was truthful.” He passed away in 410 AH, at the very beginning of the year (2).
I say: The pinnacle of fine handwriting was reached with him, yet his pupil Abū al-Ḥasan (3) surpassed him.
192 – ʿAlī ibn Hilāl, Ibn al-Bawwāb al-Baghdādī**
A client (mawlā) of Muʿāwiya ibn Abī Sufyān the Umayyad. Ibn al-Bawwāb (4) was a dahhān (painter) who excelled in tazwīq (decorative illumination).
(*) Tarikh Baghdad 2/83; al-Muntazam 7/296; Wafayat al-Ayan 3/342-343; al-Wafi bi-l-wafayat 2/201; al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya 12/14 (within the biography of Ibn al-Bawwab, where his name is corrupted to ‘Abd Allah b. Muhammad b. Asad); Miftah al-saada 1/85-86.
(1) Ibn Khallikan, in Wafayat al-Ayan, gives him the kunya Abu Abd Allah.
(2) Tarikh Baghdad 2/83.
(3) The person meant is Ali b. Hilal, Ibn al-Bawwab, whose biography follows.
(* *) al-Muntazam 8/10; Mu jam al-udaba 15/120-134; Wafayat al-Ayan 3/342-344; Duwal al-Islam 1/246; al-Ibar 3/113; al-Bidaya wa-l-nihaya 12/14-15; Subh al-asha 3/13; al-Nujum al-zahira 4/257-258; Miftah al-saada 1/85-86; Shadharat al-dhahab 3/199; Encyclopaedia of Islam, vol. 1, p. 103.
(4) Ibn Khallikan adds that he was also called Ibn al-Sitri (“son of the curtain”) because his father was a bawwab (doorman) who customarily stood at the entrance curtain, and for this reason the epithet was applied to him.