as did Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Simidhī, ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn al-ʿUraybī, Shujāʿ al-Bayṭār, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ballī, Saʿīd ibn al-Mubārak ibn Kammūnah, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Manṣūrī, ʿUmar ibn Tabarzad, Aḥmad ibn al-Aṣfar, Rayḥān ibn Tīkān the Blind, Muẓaffar ibn Abī Yaʿlā ibn Jahshuwaih, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Tumayrah, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Maḥāsin ibn Abī Sharīk, ʿAbd al-Khāliq ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ṣayyād, ʿAbd al-Salām ibn al-Mubārak al-Bardaghūlī, Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf ibn Ṣirmā, al-Mubārak ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī al-Jūd, the shaykh of al-Abrqūh, and others.

Abū al-Muẓaffar Ibn al-Jawzī (1) said: “I heard the elders of the Ḥarbiyyah quarter (2) relate from their fathers and grandfathers that when Sultan Masʿūd (3) came to Baghdad he loved to visit scholars and righteous people. He therefore summoned Ibn al-Tallāyah, but the latter said to the messenger, ‘I remain in this mosque awaiting the call of Allah five times a day.’

The messenger returned with the reply, whereupon the Sultan said, ‘I am more in need of walking to him.’

So he went to visit him and found him performing the ḍuḥā prayer, which he habitually lengthened, offering it in eight units. The Sultan joined him for part of it. A servant then whispered to Ibn al-Tallāyah, ‘The Sultan is standing over your head.’

He asked, ‘Where is Masʿūd?’

‘I am here,’ the Sultan answered.

He said, ‘O Masʿūd, act justly, and pray for me. Allah is greatest.’ He then resumed his prayer. The Sultan wept, wrote in his own hand an edict abolishing customs dues and levies, and repented with a sincere repentance.

Ibn al-Tallāyah died on the eleventh of Ramadan in the year 548 AH. He was carried aloft on people’s shoulders, and his funeral resembled that of Abū al-Ḥasan ibn