Born: 409 AH. He only began seeking hadith when he was already advanced in years. A devout, righteous, and benevolent worshipper, people sought blessings through his supplications.
Those who narrated from him include Ismaʿil ibn Muhammad al-Taymi, Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Daqqaq, and others.
Al-Daqqaq said in his Epistle (1): “Ibn Samkuya possessed an ample and abundant collection of hadith books.” He went on to say: “Yet his mistakes exceeded his understanding. He journeyed with ʿAbd al-ʿAziz al-Nakhshabi to Nishapur, stayed in Herat for years copying manuscripts; I met him there, and there was between him and me the envy and rancor that there was.” (2)
I say: What a wretched pair of qualities—may Allah protect us from them.
He died in Nishapur, in Dhu al-Hijja, 482 AH.
11 – Hibat Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Warith ibn ʿAli al-Shirazi *
The imam, the ḥāfiẓ, the hadith scholar, Abu al-Qasim al-Shirazi, an indefatigable traveller,
(1) The book entitled “Rihlat al-Daqqaq,” in which he lists one thousand shaykhs from whom he received transmission.
(2) I therefore attach no importance to al-Daqqaq’s remark about the biographee—“his delusion is greater than his understanding”—for it is a slur born of spite and envy, as al-Daqqaq himself admitted. Imam al-Dhahabi states in al-Mizan, 1/111, in the biography of Abu Nuaym, author of al-Hilya: “The statements contemporaries make against one another are not taken seriously, especially when it is clear that they spring from enmity, doctrinal bias, or jealousy. None is safe from this except those whom Allah protects; I know of no age whose scholars were free of it, save the prophets and the most truthful saints. Had I wished, I could have filled volumes with examples. O Allah, ‘do not place in our hearts any rancor toward those who believe; our Lord, You are Most Kind, Most Merciful.’”
(*) Principal sources: MS fol. 94b–95a; Ibn ʿAsakir, Tarikh; Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazam, 9/74–75; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 10/218; al-Dhahabi, al-Ibar, 3/314; al-Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 4/1215–1216; al-Mustafad min Dhayl Tarikh Baghdad, 246–248; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, 12/144; al-Suyuti, Tabaqat al-Huffaz, 446–447; Hajji Khalifa, Kashf al-Zunun, 296; Ibn al-ʿImad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 3/379.