“…you are from Fīrūzābād.” He replied, “Did not Noah’s Ark gather us all together? (1)”

I then witnessed such refinement in his manners, such gentleness and asceticism, that I became fond of remaining in his company, and I stayed with him until the day he died.

He passed away on the night of the twenty-first of Jumādā II in the year 476 AH, in Baghdad. His body was carried to the residence of the Commander of the Faithful al-Muqtadī biʾllāh, who performed the funeral prayer over him. He was buried in the cemetery of Bāb Abraz, and the condolence gathering was held in the Niẓāmiyya. His companion Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ṭabarī also led the prayer over him. After that, al-Muʾayyad ibn Niẓām al-Mulk appointed Abū Saʿd al-Mutawallī (2) to teach at the Niẓāmiyya in his place. When the news reached Niẓām al-Mulk, he wrote in protest, saying, “The school ought to have been closed for a full year out of respect for the Shaykh.” He faulted the man who had taken the post and ordered that the teaching be entrusted instead to the imam Abū Naṣr ʿAbd al-Sayyid ibn al-Ṣabbāgh (3).

I say: The Shaykh Abū Isḥāq eventually lectured there only after much reluctance, and he never accepted any governmental stipend (4) at all. He contented himself with a small turban and a cotton robe, and lived on the barest provisions. The jurist Rāfiʿ the Porter was his companion in study; he would spend half the day carrying loads for hire, using the earnings to support himself and Abū Isḥāq. Later Rāfiʿ performed the ḥajj, settled in Mecca, and became the jurist of the Sacred Mosque sometime around 440 AH.

Abū Isḥāq died leaving neither a single dirham behind nor owing a single dirham—and so it should be.