Ibn Bashkuwāl portrayed him in still loftier terms and said (1): “He told me that he travelled eastward in the year 485 AH, and I myself heard numerous narrations from him in both Córdoba and Seville.”

Another scholar stated: His father was a leading dignitary and vizier, a scholar, man of letters, and skilful poet. He happened to die in Egypt at the beginning of the year 393 AH, whereupon his son returned to al-Andalus.

Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Tarkhān related: Abū Muḥammad ibn al-ʿArabi said to me, “I kept company with Ibn Ḥazm for seven years and heard all of his works except the final volume of his book al-Fiṣal. From his book al-Īṣāl we read four volumes (2), and nothing of his writings escaped me save that.”

The qāḍī Abū Bakr was reckoned among those who, it is said, attained the rank of ijtihād.

Ibn al-Najjār said: “He narrated a little in Baghdad and authored works on hadith, jurisprudence, legal theory, Qurʾanic sciences, literature, grammar, and history. His circumstances flourished, his benefactions were abundant, poets praised him, and the wall that encircles his town was erected from his own wealth (3).”

The man of letters Abū Yaḥyā al-Yasaʿ ibn Ḥazm also mentioned him, praising him effusively and saying:

“He accepted the judgeship and was thereby put to trial; he entered the precincts of authority and so erred (4). Tongues began to stir over his footsteps, and sleep and drowsiness merely brought to pass what fate had ordained. He intended nothing but good, yet the sultan (5) cast his nets over him, stilled the motion of adversity, and displayed him to the people as a mere image.”