so he turned out to be the last person from whom he took transmission.

Those who narrated from Ibn Rifāʿah include: Tāj al-Masʿūdī; Abū al-Jūd, the Qurʾān-reciter; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Abī al-Raddād; Yaḥyā ibn ʿAqīl ibn Sharīf ibn Rifāʿah; the judge ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Mujallī al-Shāfiʿī; al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAqīl; Abū al-Barakāt ʿAbd al-Qawī ibn al-Jabbāb; Hibat Allāh ibn Ḥaydara; Muḥammad ibn ʿImād; Abū Ṣādiq ibn Ṣabbāḥ; and others.

He was regarded as a foremost authority in farāʾiḍ (inheritance law) and ḥisāb (arithmetical calculation).

He served for a time as the qāḍī of Giza, then asked to be relieved; his request was granted, whereupon he devoted himself to worship.

He died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah, 561 AH.

Hammād al-Ḥarrānī said: “Ibn Rifāʿah told me, ‘I was an orphan, and al-Khilaʿī used to shelter me. One day I passed by the great mosque of Egypt, sat in a ḥadīth circle, and listened to one section. I asked, “Who is the shaykh?” They said, “It is al-Ḥabbāl.” I returned to al-Khilaʿī and informed him; he scolded me and expelled me. Something—apparently doctrinal—stood between them, so I never went back to al-Ḥabbāl and never recovered what I had heard from him.’”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Ṭāhir Ismāʿīl ibn al-Anmāṭī said: “I heard my father—who kept long company with Ibn Rifāʿah and heard ḥadīth from him—say: ‘Ibn Rifāʿah had secluded himself in a mosque in the Qarāfa cemetery of Egypt. His books were with him in an upper room where he would spend the entire night in worship. He had a pious wife, but he would not allow her to sleep in that upper room. One night she asked permission to stay there; he consented. She remained seated while he rose to perform his customary devotions. She heard the sound of someone being tormented, fainted, wept, became distraught, woke the next morning ill, and died a few days later. My father showed me her grave.’”