Abū ʿAlī was martyred in the battle of Qutanda (1) in Rabīʿ al-Awwal, 514 AH, when he was about sixty years old. His livelihood came from merchandise that he placed with trustworthy brothers, and he left behind priceless books and carefully written source-copies that attest to his prodigious memory and expertise.

He also recited the Qurʾān to al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Mubashshir, a disciple of Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī. He himself had been born around 454 AH and was a man of religion, scrupulous piety, dignity, tireless devotion to knowledge, and outstanding ability in jurisprudence. He kept company with Abū Bakr al-Shāshī for five years, during which he copied from him his major Taʿlīqa on disputed questions. He then settled in Murcia, assumed the foremost chair for disseminating the Book and the Sunnah, and the leading imams vied with one another to narrate abundantly from him, so that his fame spread far and wide.

When he resigned from the judgeship, letters came from the sultan ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf ibn Tāshfīn ordering him to return to the bench, but he refused. Matters remained thus for several months until the students and travelling scholars wrote a petition to the Commander of the Faithful, Ibn Tāshfīn, complaining of their plight, the exhaustion of their funds, and the loss of their resources. The chief judge interceded on his behalf with the Commander of the Faithful, explained the grounds of his excuse, and the matter was dropped.

Qāḍī ʿIyād relates: “The jurist Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Jaʿfar told me that Abū ʿAlī the ḥāfiẓ said to him, ‘Take the Ṣaḥīḥ. Name any text you wish from it and I will give you its chain, or name any chain and I will give you its text.’”

219 – Al-Nuhāwandī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn ibn Naṣr ibn al-Murhaf *

The judge, erudite scholar, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn ibn Naṣr ibn al-Murhaf al-Nuhāwandī, later called al-Aydabnī—Aydabn is one of the villages of Diyār Bakr—was a Shāfiʿī jurist and judge.