and kissed a small child in the circle, and he was a wealthy man, owning eighteen thousand date-palms. Yet it was also said that he was coarse, poorly dressed(1) and somewhat tight-fisted. The amir forbade him to pluck at his beard and threatened him; then one day he uttered something that amazed the amir, who said, “Ask of me whatever you wish.” He replied, “Grant me permission to cut off my beard.” The amir laughed and said, “Granted.”

Al-Ḥarīrī died on 6 Rajab in the year 516 AH, in Basra. He left two sons: Najm al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh and the qāḍī of Basra, Ḍiyāʾ al-Islām ʿUbayd Allāh. He was seventy years old.

269 – Ibn al-Samarqandī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar

The shaykh, imām, and meticulous hadith scholar, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh, son of the accomplished reciter and verifier Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Abī al-Ashʿath al-Samarqandī—born in Damascus, resident in Baghdad—a linguist and the brother of the hadith scholar Ismāʿīl.

He heard hadith from: Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Kattānī; Abū Naṣr ibn Ṭalāb; ʿAbd al-Dāʾim al-Hilālī in Damascus; Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Naqqūr; al-Ṣarīfīnī and several others in Baghdad; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAfīf in Būshanj; ʿAlī ibn Mūsā al-Musawī in Marw; and Kāmil ibn Ibrāhīm al-Khandaqī in Jurjān,