He performed the pilgrimage, remained for a time in the Sacred Precinct, and a number of leading imams studied under him.
Tāj al-Kindī relates that he once saw him at the door of the Imām Abū Manṣūr ibn al-Jawālīqī (1).
Kamal al-Anbārī (2) said: “When al-Zamakhsharī arrived for the ḥajj, our shaykh Abū al-Saʿādāt ibn al-Shajarī (3) came to greet him and said:
My questions to each passing caravan would bring me
The sweetest news of Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī (4);
But when at last we met—by God!—my ear had never heard
Anything fairer than what my eye now sees (5).”
He then praised him at length. Al-Zamakhsharī did not speak until Abū al-Saʿādāt had finished; he humbled himself before him, honored him, and said:
“Zayd al-Khayl once came before the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and raised (6) his voice with the two testimonies, whereupon the Prophet said to him, ‘O Zayd (7)! Every man who has been described to me I have found to fall short of…’”
(1) His biography has already been given under no. 50.
(2) Nuzhat al-alba, p. 392.
(3) His biography will appear below under no. 126.
(4) Nuzhat al-alba and Mu jam al-udaba read “Dawad” in place of “Ali.”
(5) Al-Anbari adds that the poet also recited: “Wa-astakbira l-akhbara qabla liqa'ihi / fa-lamma ltaqayna saghara l-khabaru l-khabaru” (“I used to think the reports exaggerated before meeting him; once we met, the report itself seemed paltry”). These verses are likewise recorded in Mu jam al-udaba 19/128 and in al-Mustafad min dhayl Tarikh Baghdad, p. 228.
Ibn Khallikan quotes the first two lines in the biography of Jaʿfar b. Falah, attributing them to Ibn Hani al-Andalusi; in his version the opening reads “ʿan Jaʿfar b. Falah” instead of “ʿan Ahmad b. Dawad.” He then remarks: “People attribute these two lines to Abu Tammam concerning the judge Ahmad b. Abi Dawad, but this is an error: the lines are not by Abu Tammam, and they cite them with the wording ‘Ahmad b. Dawad,’ whereas the correct form is Ibn Abi Dawad; had they said so, the metre would not have scanned.” See Wafayat al-aʿyan 1/361-362. Ibn Khallikan also reproduces the three lines in the biography of Ibn al-Shajari, 6/46.
(6) Nuzhat al-alba reads: “fa-hina basara bi-n-nabiyyi ﷺ rafaʿa sawtahu” (“and when he saw the Prophet ﷺ he raised his voice”).
(7) Nuzhat al-alba reads: “ya Zayd al-khayl.”