and copied with his own hand a quantity beyond reckoning, his handwriting being graceful and swift. He travelled to Khurasan and auditioned hadith there; in Isfahan he penned for me, in his own script, one fascicle, and I received narrations from him.

I heard Yahya ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Makki—an upright young man—say:
“ʿAbd al-Rahim ibn al-Ikhwah spoiled my hearing of the Muʿjam of al-Tabarani. He was reciting it to Fatimah and would read one or two fascicles in a single hour. I said to myself, ‘Perhaps he is turning two leaves at a time.’
“So I sat close to him, stealing glances. He did exactly what I had thought: omitting a report or two and turning over two folios. I produced my own copy and collated it; that day he read only a little, and this became evident to those present, so I withdrew.”

Al-Samʿani said: “I never saw anything from him but good.”

Ibn al-Najjar said: “He wrote beyond all measure, and his calligraphy was handsome; he read swiftly. I saw in his hand a copy of the Tanbih of Abu Ishaq, and at its close he recorded that he had copied it in a single day. He possessed learning. He died in Shiraz in Shaʿban 548 AH.” (1)

189 – Ibn al-Sallar, Abu al-Hasan ʿAli ibn al-Sallar al-Kurdi *

The vizier, al-Malik al-ʿAdil, Sayf al-Din, Abu al-Hasan ʿAli ibn al-Sallar al-Kurdi, vizier of al-Zafir bi-llah the ʿUbayidid in Egypt.

He was reared in the palace in Cairo; his circumstances shifted from post to post, and he governed Upper Egypt and other districts. Al-Zafir had previously appointed Najm al-Din Salim ibn Miṣal, one of the leading amirs, as vizier, and his standing grew