Al-Saqaṭī said, “Abū al-Qāsim was the foremost authority of the Shāfiʿī school. He had mastered the Qur’an, jurisprudence, hadith, legal theory, philology, and Arabic. He was sharp-witted in exercising independent reasoning, wide-ranging in discourse, and eloquent in debate and disputation; no one surpassed him in formal argument and in clarifying lessons, and he was divinely aided in issuing fatwas (1).

He said in another place: “He was the one to whom people referred regarding the school and controversial issues, as well as the knowledge of unusual expressions and rhetoric; the leadership of the Shāfiʿīs ultimately devolved upon him.”

He died on the twentieth of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, 482 AH.

I say: He did not live to a great old age, and no high-isnād transmission of his hadith has reached me.

52 – al-Barzabinī, Abū ʿAlī Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad

The Shaykh of the Ḥanbalīs, the judge: Abū ʿAlī Yaʿqūb ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Aḥmad ibn Satura (2) al-ʿUkbarī, the Ḥanbalī, a pupil of the judge Abū Yaʿlā.

He was a man of many disciplines, versed in legal theory, hadith, and the Qur’an. A large number of students studied jurisprudence with him; he authored works within the school (3), and everyone who read under him went on to excel (4).