and turned wholeheartedly to God, taking up residence in his mosque by the Bāb al-Marātib (1). Qur’an reciters, hadith transmitters, and grammarians soon gathered around him in great numbers. For his sake, Sibṭ al-Khayyāṭ (2) authored the work The Shining Sun on the Nine Renowned Readings (3).
A large company studied under him, among them: Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Wāsiṭī the Blind; ʿAlī ibn ʿAsākir al-Baṭāʾiḥī; Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Hamadhānī; Naṣr Allāh ibn al-Kayyāl; Yaʿqūb ibn Yūsuf al-Harbī; al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Muhjil al-Bāqadrāʾī (4); ʿAwḍ al-Marātibī; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Khālid ibn Bakhtiyār; Abū al-Muẓaffar Aḥmad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥamdī; and many others.
Those who narrated from him include: Abū al-Qāsim Ibn ʿAsākir, Abū Bakr ibn al-Bāqillānī al-Wāsiṭī, Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī, Abū al-Fath al-Mandāʾī, and Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥamdiyya. He also left a collection of poetry (dīwān) (5), and he lost his eyesight toward the end of his life.
(1) It was one of the gates of the caliphal palace in Baghdad, counted among its grandest and most prestigious entrances. The gate-keeper enjoyed high standing and full executive authority … The houses inside the quarter were exorbitantly priced and rarely available in the days of the sultans, because anyone who reached it was treated as being under sanctuary. Muʿjam Yaqut, 1/312.
(2) The reference is to the eminent, reliable Qur’an-reader Abu Muhammad ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAli ibn Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allah, known as Sibt al-Khayyat al-Baghdadi; he died in Baghdad in 541 AH. Maʿrifat al-Qurraʾ al-Kibar, p. 443.
(3) The author of Muʿjam al-Muʾallifin, 4/54, erred by attributing the work to al-Bariʿ; the correct attribution is found in Muʿjam al-Buldan, 1/327.
(4) The nisba derives from Baqadara, a village near Baghdad on the Khurasan road. According to Yaqut (Muʿjam al-Buldan, 1/327), he died in 582 AH and was described as a pious man.
(5) The compiler—may Allah have mercy on him—states in Maʿrifat al-Qurraʾ, 1/387: “His poetry stands at the summit,” and he quotes the following lines, composed in Mecca in 472 AH:
He recalled the loved ones and the homeland,
The gentle breeze, the family, the dwelling-place;
So he wept in grief—and rightly so—
A lover, worn thin by yearning and sworn to languish;
From a longing heart that sways him,
A dove whose cooing bends the branches;
O turtledove, you share the plight
Of one whose eyes you have never allowed a taste of sleep. =