He also authored the work “ʿUyūn al-Adillah” on the knowledge of Allah, wrote a treatise on points of disagreement (1), compiled “Ḥaqīqat al-Ādamī,” and produced other writings that Ibn Abī Ṭayy (2) listed in “Tārīkh al-Imāmiyyah.”
289 – al-Farrāʾ, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿUmar
The shaykh, scholar, trustworthy authority, and ḥadith transmitter Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Farrāʾ, originally from Mosul and later based in Egypt.
He studied with ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḍarrāb, from whom he heard the book “al-Mujālasa” by al-Daynūrī.
He also received ḥadith from ʿAbd al-Bāqī ibn Fāris; the ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Aḥmad al-Bukhārī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Maḥāmilī; Abū Ibrāhīm Aḥmad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Maymūn; Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Makkī al-Azdī; and Karīmah al-Marwaziyyah—whom he met in Mecca—as well as Ibn al-Gharrāʾ in Jerusalem, along with many others.
Narrators who reported from him include al-Sīlafi, Abū al-Qāsim al-Būṣīrī, and a number of additional scholars.
(1) There are three works: the first, Al-Tabsera fi khilaf al-Shafii lil-Imamiyya (A Clarification of the Disagreements between al-Shafii and the Imamiyya); the second, Al-Muqtabas fi al-khilaf baynana wa-bayna Malik ibn Anas (The Extract on the Disputes between Us and Malik ibn Anas); and the third, Al-Bayan fi al-khilaf baynana wa-bayna al-Numan (The Elucidation of the Disagreements between Us and al-Numan [Abu Hanifa]).
(2) This is Yahya ibn Hamida ibn Zafir ibn Ali ibn Abd Allah al-Ghassani al-Halabi (d. 630/1233). He was accomplished in jurisprudence according to the Imamiyya school, competent in legal theory and Qur anic readings, and the author of several works on literature and history. Ibn Hajar states in Al-Lisan, 6/264: “I have examined his writings; they abound in mistakes, omissions, and misreadings. The reason, as Yaqut reports, is that he would ‘waylay’ people’s compositions: he would take a book whose compiler had laboured over it, copy it verbatim while moving passages forward or backward, adding and deleting, coin a bizarre new title for it, and write it out in an elegant hand to deceive the unsuspecting—and he profited thereby.” I add: many interlopers at the table of knowledge do the same in our own day, affecting a learning they do not possess and garnering grandiose titles to which they have no right.
(*) Tarikh al-Islam, 4:237/2; Al-Ibr, 4/44; Shadharāt al-dhahab, 4/59.