—a towering authority on transmission, whose influence reached far and wide, who had travelled great distances in pursuit of knowledge, an austere devotee—Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Fakhkhār. He died in the city of Valencia on the tenth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal in 419 AH.

The gathering at his funeral was immense. The people there witnessed a sign: birds that looked like swallows (1)—though they were not actually swallows—wove through the crowd and hovered compassionately above the bier, tilting their wings toward it. They did not leave him until he was laid to rest; only then did they disperse, and people spoke of the incident for a long time.

He remained in Valencia for some time, obeyed and revered, esteemed alike by the ruler and the masses. His stature in jurisprudence and devotion was lofty, and many marvellous stories were told about him (2).

Jumāhir b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān said: “Shaykh Khalīl the merchant led the funeral prayer over Ibn al-Fakhkhār, and the birds fluttered above him until the interment was complete” (3).

Al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad al-Qubbashī reported the same story of the birds, adding: “He was about eighty years old, and it was said that his supplications were answered.” That claim was tested in several instances (4).

Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī said: “He died on the seventh of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, 419 AH, at the age of seventy-six, and he was the last of the jurist-ḥadith masters—firmly grounded scholars of the Book and the Sunnah—in al-Andalus. May Allah have mercy on him” (5).