I heard Jaʿfar al-Sarrāj say:

“I once saw Abū al-Ḥasan al-Qazwīnī wearing a very delicate robe, and it crossed my mind: ‘How can a man of such asceticism dress in this?’ He looked at me straightaway and recited: ‘Say, “Who has forbidden the adornment of Allah which He has produced for His servants…?”’ (Qur’an 7:32).

“Another time I was in his company at a session of samāʿ (spiritual audition). The sun reached us and its heat became painful, so I thought to myself, ‘If only the shaykh would move into the shade.’ At that very moment he said: ‘Say, “The fire of Hell is fiercer in heat…”’ (Qur’an 9:81).”

Those who died in the same year as al-Qazwīnī, 442 AH, were: Abū al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Tawwazī; the Arabic grammarian Abū al-Qāsim ʿUmar ibn Thābit al-Thamānīnī (1), a companion of Ibn Jinnī; the preacher Abū Ṭāhir Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-ʿAllāf (2); and Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Aḥmad ibn Fādhuwayh.

410 – al-Fārisi ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad *

The shaykh, the trustworthy, the eminent, the chief transmitter of Egypt: Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā al-Fārisi, later known as al-Miṣrī.

He was a long-lived shaykh with lofty chains of transmission. He narrated extensively from Abū Aḥmad ibn al-Nāṣiḥ the Qur’anic exegete, the judge Abū Ṭāhir al-Dhuhlī, Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Ḥayyuwaih, al-Ḥasan ibn Rashīq, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Baghdādī, and others.

Those who reported from him include: Sahl ibn Bishr al-Isfarāyīnī—later of Damascus—Abū Ṣādiq Murshid ibn Yaḥyā al-Madīnī, Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Rāzī, and many others.