240 – al-Bazrī, ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿIkrimah *
The Imām, foremost scholar of the Jazīrah region, Abū al-Qāsim ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿIkrimah, son of al-Bazrī al-Jazarī, a Shāfiʿī.
He travelled in quest of knowledge and took the school’s doctrine from al-Ghazālī, al-Ilkiyā (1), and a number of other authorities.
He excelled in the finer, more intricate questions of jurisprudence, and a host of leading imams completed their training under him.
He wrote a large work in which he clarified the problematic passages of the Muhadhdhab (2).
Ibn Khallikān (3) said: “He was—so it is related—the most knowledgeable person then alive concerning the Shāfiʿī school. He was styled Zayn al-Dīn, Jamāl al-Islām, and within the Jazīrah he had no peer.”
He died in one of the two months of Rabīʿ in 560 AH, at the age of eighty-nine.
The nisbah ‘al-Bazrī’ refers to the craft and trade of bazr, namely the pressing of linseed oil.
241 – al-Harrānī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās **
The upright, eminent scholar, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿAbd
(*) Main sources: Yaqut, Mujam al-Buldan, vol. 2, p. 138 (entry “Jazirat Ibn Umar”); Ibn Nuqtah, al-Istidrak, section “Bab al-Buzari wa-l-Burzi”; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil fi al-Tarikh, 11/321; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-Ayan, 3/444–445; al-Mukhtasar, 3/42–43; al-Dhahabi, al-Ibar, 4/171; Tammat al-Mukhtasar, 2/106; Ibn al-Asakir, Mirat al-Jinan, 3/344; al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Shafi iyah, 7/251–253; al-Isnawi, Tabaqat, 1/257–258; an-Nujum az-Zahira, 5/370; Hajji Khalifah, Kashf az-Zunun, 2/1913; Shadharat adh-Dhahab, 4/189; Khatib, Hadiyat al-Arifin, 1/784.
(1) The word is pronounced with a kasra on the k and a fat-ha on the y; it is a non-Arabic honorific meaning “one of great stature, foremost among people.” It was the sobriquet of Ali b. Muhammad b. Ali at-Tabari al-Harasi ash-Shafi i (d. 504/1110). His biography appeared in vol. 19, no. 207.
(2) By Shaykh Abu Ishaq ash-Shirazi. He also produced an explanation of the difficult terms and transmitters of his Mukhtasar, entitled al-Asami wa-l-Ilal min Kitab al-Muhadhdhab; see Wafayat al-Ayan, 3/445.
(3) The information is taken from Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-Ayan, 3/445.
(* *) Additional sources: Ibn al-Jawzi, al-Muntazam, 10/212–213; al-Dhahabi, al-Ibar, 4/171; as-Safadi, al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat, 3/330, 340.