they were to recite. I heard him say: “A bundle of sorrow is better than cart-loads of deeds.”
Al-Samʿānī relates: “I heard him remark, ‘How many a seeker fails to find, and how many a finder never sought.’ ”
Ibn al-Jawzī (1) adds: “He inclined toward Shiʿism. When the sultan died he was humiliated: a village that had been in his hands was confiscated, he was made to repay its revenues and was imprisoned. He was later released but forbidden to preach because he did not accord the caliphate the reverence it deserved, after which he tasted abasement.”
He died in Muḥarram 551 AH.
218 – Mujallī, Abū al-Maʿālī Mujallī ibn Jumayʿ ibn Najā al-Qurashī *
The leading Shāfiʿī shaykh in Egypt: Abū al-Maʿālī Mujallī ibn Jumayʿ ibn Najā al-Qurashī al-Makhzūmī, al-Arsūfī (2), originally from Syria and later resident in Egypt. He is the author of al-Dhakhāʾir, one of the school’s recognised reference works (3).
He assumed the chief judgeship of Egypt by appointment from al-ʿĀdil ibn al-Sallār (4) in 547 AH, and was dismissed two years later.
(1) In al-Muntazam, vol. 10, p. 167.
(*) Further biographical notices appear in: Wafayat al-Ayan 4:154; al-Ibar 4:141; Mirat al-Jinan 3:297; Tabaqat al-Subki 7:277–284; Tabaqat al-Isnawi 1:511–512; al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya 12:233; Husn al-Muhadara 1:405; Tabaqat Ibn Hidayat Allah, pp. 206–207; Kashf al-Zunun, pp. 47, 822; Shadharat al-Dhahab 4:157; Hadiyat al-Arifin 2:4–5.
Isnawi vocalizes the surname Majalli with a fathah on the jim and a doubled lam pronounced with kasra; in Shadharat al-Dhahab it is mistakenly printed as Mahli, with a simple ha.
(2) Al-Samani and Ibn Khallikan place a damma on the initial hamza of the nisba, whereas Yaqut reads it with a fatha; the form refers to Arsuf, a coastal town of Greater Syria situated between Jaffa and Caesarea.
(3) Isnawi observes that the work contains many subsidiary points and unusual matters, yet its arrangement is unconventional and therefore hard for those who wish to extract its legal questions; he also notes several inaccuracies (Tabaqat, 1:512). Among the author’s other writings are Adab al-Qadi and al-Jahr bil-Basmala.
(4) This is the same person whose biography appeared above under no. 189.