…of the matter; he was well-known in his town to both elite and common people, noted for his chastity. He was the leading shaykh of the Sufis and their head. He lived to an advanced age, narrated traditions, people heard from him, and students travelled to meet him. (1) The autograph reads al-faraqaniyya with qaf, which is a scribal mistake. Al-Sam ani and al-Mundhiri vocalise the ra with sukun, while Yaqut vocalises it with kasra. Farfan is a village in the Isfahan district. The woman mentioned, ‘Afifa, is the righteous muhadditha Umm Hani ‘Afifa bint Ahmad b. ‘Abd Allah al-Farfaniyya al-Isfahaniyya; she died in 606 AH. Her biography will appear later in this book. (2) Al-Tahbir, 1/254, records his own words: “He wrote to me granting ijaza (licence) for everything he had heard and transmitted, including: Kitab al-‘Ilal by ‘Ali b. al-Madini; al-Fawa id by Abu ‘Ali b. Manjuwayh; Kitab at-Tawhid wa’r-Radd ‘ala man khalafa as-Sunnah by Abu’l-Hasan ‘Ali b. Ahmad al-Bushanji; and Kitab al-Hadi by the hafiz Abu ‘Abd Allah b. Mandah…”. (*) Principal bibliographic sources: Qala id al-‘Uqban, 260; adh-Dhakhira, MS 2 Q/2 M, fols. 834–850; Mu‘jam as-Salafi, fol. 212; al-Kharida, 2/315; Bughyat al-Multamis, no. 896; Bada i‘ al-Bada i‘, 376; al-Mutrib, 78, 138; Takmilat as-Sila, 462; al-Maghrib, 1/419; Wafayat al-A‘yan, 3/93–95; Tarikh al-Islam, 4/230/1; al-‘Ibar, 4/40; al-Masalik, 11/383; al-Ihata, 3/439–441; Bughyat al-Wu‘at, 2/57; numerous notices in Nafh at-Tib, 1/499, 2/30, 652, 3/216, 438, 441, 449, 458, 567, 600, 4/301, 325, 345; Kashf az-Zunun, 795; Shadharat adh-Dhahab, 4/55–56; Hadiyyat al-‘Arifin, 1/454. (3) Pronounced with fatha on the shin, sukun on the nun, fatha on the ta and kasra on the ra: a gentilic deriving from Shantarin, a town in the western part of al-Andalus; see Mu‘jam al-Buldan, 3/367.