al-Tuyūrī, who said, “I heard Abū al-Qāsim Ibn Barhān relate: ‘I entered upon al-Sharīf al-Murtaḍā during his last illness. He had turned his face toward the wall and was repeating:
“Abū Bakr and ʿUmar assumed authority and ruled with justice; they sought mercy and were granted mercy—shall I then claim that they apostasized after submitting to Islam?”

‘We rose and left; I had not yet reached the threshold (1) of the door when I heard the cry announcing his death.’

I say: His proof that the unbelievers will ultimately leave the Fire rests on the inferred numerical sense of God’s words, “They will remain therein for ages” (Q 78:23). That does not avail him in the face of the general statements: “They will never emerge from the Fire” (Q 2:167), “They shall dwell therein forever” (Q 4:169), and others besides. I have examined the question separately in a dedicated booklet.

Those who died the same year—four-hundred-and-fifty-six—include: Shams al-Ummah al-Halwāʾī (2); the hadith scholar Abū al-Walīd al-Darbandī (3); the Qadi of al-Andalus, Abū al-Qāsim Sirāj ibn ʿAbd Allāh (4); the ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Nakhshabī (5); Abū Shākir al-Qabrī, later al-Qurṭubī (6); the jurist Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm (7); the ruler Shihāb al-Dawla Qutulmish ibn Isrāʾīl ibn Saljūq, lord of Rūm and ancestor of its later kings (8); Abū al-Ḥusayn Ibn al-Narsī (9); Abū Saʿīd Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Naysābūrī al-Khassāb (10); and the vizier