Al-Silafī recorded his birthdate and said, “In his day he was Egypt’s foremost authority on the Arabic language.” (1)
He died in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, 520 AH, at the age of one hundred years and three months.
Al-ʿImād al-Kātib also mentions him and cites verses he composed while working in Musāfir al-ʿAṭṭār:
O neck of a silver ewer,
O stature of the tender, swaying bough—
Though you have turned away and cast me aside,
Can you ever depart from my heart?
264 – Ibn Barhān, Abū al-Fath Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Barhān*
The eminent scholar-jurist: Abū al-Fath Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Barhān (2) ibn al-Ḥammāmī al-Baghdādī, a Shāfiʿī.
He was among the most intelligent of men, outstanding in the school and its foundational principles, and was numbered among the companions of Ibn—
(1) Yaqut states in Mu jam al-Udaba that among his works is the book Khitat Misr, in which he excelled; he also produced several grammatical treatises and a work entitled al-Nasikh wa-l-Mansukh (Abrogating and Abrogated). Salah al-Safadi, in al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat 2/247, describes him as occupying an eminent position in grammar, belles-lettres and the other literary sciences, though his poetry is rather poor.
(*) Principal sources for his biography: Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazam 9/250-251; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh 10/625; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-A yan 1/99; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam 4:232/2–233/1; al-Mustafad 62; al-Safadi, al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat 7/207-208; Uyun al-Tawarikh 13/445-446; Mirat al-Jinan 3/25; al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Subki 6/30-31; al-Isnawi, Tabaqat al-Isnawi 1/207; Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat al-Shafi iyya 1/307; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya 12/194, 196; al-Suyuti, al-Muzhir fi Ulum al-Lugha 1/20, 61, 298; Tabaqat Ibn Hidaya Allah 201; Hajji Khalifa, Kashf al-Zunun 201, 2001; Shadharat al-Dhahab 4/61; Rawdat al-Jannat 71; Hadiyyat al-Arifin 1/82.
(2) The consonant ba is to be read with a fatḥa, as in the base manuscript and as several scholars—among them the author himself in al-Mushtabih 1/80—have indicated.