and Abū Bakr ibn Khallād, Abū Bakr al-Qaṭīʿī, Ḥabīb ibn al-Ḥasan al-Qazzāz, and others after them.

He mastered the Hanbali school, and was counted among the foremost authorities in jurisprudence, Arabic language, poetry, and the mansūb style of calligraphy (1).

Abū Bakr al-Barqānī declared him reliable (2). Those who transmitted his narrations include Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb and ʿĪsā ibn Aḥmad al-Hamadhānī. His fine handwriting became proverbial.

Al-Khaṭīb related: ʿĪsā ibn Aḥmad told us that Abū ʿAlī ibn Shihāb once said to him, “Show me your handwriting; I have been told you write quickly.” He examined it, found it wanting, and then said:

“I earned twenty-five thousand dirhams—clear profit—from manuscript copy-work (3). I would buy paper for five dirhams, copy al-Mutanabbī’s Dīwān onto it in three nights, and sell it for two hundred dirhams, or at the very least for one hundred and fifty; the same held for other sought-after works of literature (4).”

Al-Azharī said: He bequeathed one-third of his estate to the Hanbali jurists, but they received nothing; the ruler seized one thousand dinars of his wealth, exclusive of the real estate (5).

Ibn Shihāb died in Rajab 428 AH.