the father of Qāḍī Abū Bakr ibn al-ʿArabi, and a number of others.

The last person to receive his authorisation to transmit these materials was Abū al-Ḥasan Shurayḥ (1) ibn Muḥammad.

He grew up in comfort and luxury, was endowed with exceptional intelligence, a quick-flowing mind, and a large collection of precious books. His father was one of Córdoba’s leading dignitaries, having served as vizier in the ʿĀmirid government, and Abū Muḥammad likewise held the vizierate in his youth. He first mastered literature, historical reports, poetry, logic, and branches of philosophy, and those subjects left an imprint on him (2)—would that he had been spared it (3). I have examined a work of his urging special attention to logic and placing it (4) above the other sciences, which caused me pain; for he is a foremost authority in the Islamic sciences, an ocean in transmitted knowledge, without peer—though somewhat dry—and excessively ẓāhirī in the subsidiary rulings, not in the fundamentals.

It is said that he began his legal studies in the Shāfiʿī school, but his own ijtihād eventually led him to reject analogy altogether, whether clear or subtle, to adhere strictly to the outward wording of the texts and the general purport of the Qur’an and ḥadith, and to uphold the presumption of original innocence and the continuity of the status quo. On that basis he authored many books, engaged in public debate, and gave free rein to his tongue and pen; yet he failed to show courtesy toward the imams, instead employing coarse expressions (5), reviling and vilifying them (6). Consequently, he was repaid in kind, to the point that he