the compiler of a Dīwān and other literary works. He composed eulogies for the ruler Ibn ʿAbbād (1) and for Ibn Ṣumādih, and he enjoyed great dignity and prestige. He passed away on Majorca (2) in 507 AH (3).
216 – Maḥmūd ibn al-Faḍl ibn Maḥmūd ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Iṣfahānī
The Imām, ḥāfiẓ (hadith master), and a source of benefit to students in Baghdad; Abū Naṣr al-Iṣfahānī, known as “the Dyer.”
He heard hadith from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Manda, his brother ʿAbd al-Wahhāb—the two sons of Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Manda—Abū al-Faḍl al-Buzānī, Abū Bakr ibn Mājah, ʿĀʾisha bint al-Ḥasan al-Warkāniyya, and, in Baghdad, Rizq Allāh al-Tamīmī, Ṭirād al-Zaynabī, and many others. He even wrote from the associates of al-Ṣarīfīnī and from ʿAlī ibn al-Busrī.
Narrators from him include Ibn Nāṣir, Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Salām, al-Mubārak ibn Kāmil, al-Silafī, and others.
(1) He was devoted to the Banu Abbad, for whom he composed his finest panegyrics and elegies, as well as his most original pieces in various poetic genres. He produced two books about them: the first, al-Suluk fi Waʿz al-Muluk (Guidance in Admonishing Kings), into which he inserted several fragments and odes mourning their vanished days and lost splendour; the second, al-Iʿtimad fi Akhbar Bani Abbad (Reliance: The History of the Banu Abbad), which recounts their story from their origins to their demise. For selected poems, see al-Dhakhira and other anthologies.
(2) Mayurqa—pronounced with an open mīm followed by ḍamma, and with silent wāw and rā—is an island east of al-Andalus; nearby lies another island called Manurqa. The two form the largest pair of the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean. Under the Taifa rulers they were governed by Mujahid al-Amiri; Mayurqa was conquered by the Muslims in 290 AH/903 CE.
(3) Ibn al-Abbar records the same date of death in al-Takmila, p. 410.
(*) al-Muntazam, 9/202-203; Mukhtasar Tabaqat ʿUlamaʾ al-Hadith, Ibn ʿAbd al-Hadi, fol. 224; Tarikh al-Islam, 4/plate 208/2-209/1; Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 4/1252-1253.