ʿAlī ibn al-Musallam ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Fatḥ al-Sulamī, a Damascene, Shāfiʿī jurist and authority on the laws of inheritance.
He heard hadith from Abū Naṣr ibn Ṭalāb al-Khaṭīb, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Aḥmad al-Kattānī, Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd, Najā al-ʿAṭṭār, Ghanāʾim ibn Aḥmad, Ibn Abī al-ʿAlāʾ al-Maṣīṣī, the jurist Naṣr al-Maqdisī, and a number of others.
He pursued legal studies with the judge Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Marwazī and served as répétiteur for the jurist Naṣr. (1)
Al-Ghazālī, as quoted by Ibn ʿAsākir, remarked: “I left in Syria a young man who, if he lives, will attain great stature.” Events confirmed his discernment: Jamāl al-Islām taught for a time in al-Ghazālī’s own circle, and in 514 AH he was appointed lecturer at the Amīniyya college. (2)
Ibn ʿAsākir said, “We received a great deal from him. He was trustworthy and firmly grounded, an expert in the Shāfiʿī school and in the science of inheritance. He had committed to memory the book ‘Tajrīd al-Tajrīd’ by Abū Ḥātim al-Qazwīnī. (3) His handwriting was elegant, and he was notably successful in issuing fatwas—so much so that the people of Syria relied on his legal opinions. He was exceedingly…"