as well as al-Mukhtalaf wa’l-Muʾtalaf (Names That Differ and Agree), Ṭabaqāt al-ʿUlamāʾ fī Kulli Fan (Classes of Scholars in Every Discipline), and Mā Ikhtalafa waʾt-talafa min Ansāb al-ʿArab (The Divergent and Convergent Lineages of the Arabs). He also authored works on grammar and lexicography to which none had previously aspired. Of fine conduct, easy-going in spirit, and humble, he was a model for the people of his city.

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Hamadhānī said: “He came to Baghdad in the year 480 AH, attached himself to the Niẓāmiyyah library, and possessed an intelligence of astonishing acuity. He would hear a long qasīdah once and then recite it verbatim; he would skim a book a single time and afterwards recount its key points. People faulted him for self-admiration, yet he was chaste and dignified. He lavished praise upon the vizier Abū Manṣūr ibn Jahīr and received from him generous support. Later, however, he lampooned him in devotion to Muʾayyad al-Mulk ibn al-Niẓām. Ibn Jahīr informed the caliph that he had been satirised and that al-Abiwardī had extolled the ruler of Egypt, whereupon his blood was declared lawful. He fled to Hamadhān and forged this genealogy so that the Egyptian ruler’s name would be forgotten. It is also said that the formidable vizier poisoned him, and he died suddenly.”

Ibn al-Khasshāb said: “I read with ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn al-Ikhuwa three fascicles from the beginning of al-Abiwardī’s book Zād al-Rifāq, and—yes, by Allah—the work is weak in composition; its adab is mixed with extraneous sciences that are of no merit. This shows that al-Abiwardī was pretentious, eager to be viewed as a prodigy, and claiming what he did not possess.”

Abū Ismāʿīl al-Ṭughrāʾī (1) composed an elegy for al-Abiwardī:

If, after you, water could slake my thirst,
I would drink nothing but bitterness and patient endurance;

And if my eyes should light upon any beauty in this world
Since you have gone, may I never take pleasure in the sight.