was seen by anyone except wrapped in a ṭarḥah (a light cloak) (1) and soft slippers—even by his own wife. I once entered his room during the illness that led to his death and found him asleep in that same ṭarḥah.
Ibn al-Jawzī (2) said: “He was a leading figure; we never saw a vizier or any office-holder more dignified than he, nor anyone finer in appearance and bearing. Seldom did anyone hear from him an unbecoming word. His tenure was lengthy, and the years honed him. He served al-Rāshid and acted as deputy vizier for al-Muqtafī, after which al-Muqtafī turned away from him….”
He (Ibn al-Jawzī) then mentioned incidents showing that nothing remained to him of the judiciary but the title, and he fell ill.
He passed away on ʿĪd al-Aḍḥā in 543 AH.
132 – Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Jaʿfar al-Bayhaqī
The erudite scholar, Qurʾān exegete, and polymath—Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Jaʿfar al-Bayhaqī—was the leading authority of Nishapur and the author of numerous works, among them Taj al-Maṣādir (3).
(1) Al-tarha: a type of cloak similar to the taysalan; teachers used to place it on top of the turban. The taysalan itself is a mantle worn over the shoulders and back. See R. Dozy, A Detailed Glossary of Arab Garments, pp. 254-262; Mashariq al-anwar 1/324; Muʿjam matn al-lugha, s.v. tarh, tls.
(2) Al-Muntazam, 10/153.
(*) Maʿjam al-udabaʾ 4/49-51; Inbaʾ al-ruwat 1/89-90; Tadhkirat al-huffaz 4/1306; Al-Wafi bi-l-wafayat 7/214-215; Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat al-nuhat, p. 188; Al-Suyuti, Tabaqat al-mufassirin, p. 4; Bughyat al-wuʿat 1/346; Al-Dawudi, Tabaqat al-mufassirin 1/54-55; Kashf al-zunun (s.v. Jaʿfark) 269, 1619, 2052; Rawdat al-jinan, p. 71; Hadiyyat al-ʿarifin 1/84 (s.v. Jaʿfark); Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, 5/239. – The final k in Abū Jaʿfark is the Persian diminutive suffix.
(3) Kashf al-zunun, p. 269, states that the author gathered in it the sources of the Quran and the hadith, removed proverbs and poetry, and added the verbs that occur frequently in Arabic diwans. Lithographed in Bombay, 1301–1302 AH. Among his other works is Yanabiʿ al-lughah, in which he likewise stripped al-Sihah of its poetic citations and appended …