324 – Ibn Saʿāda, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Mursī
The imām, erudite scholar and Shaykh of al-Andalus, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf ibn Saʿāda al-Mursī—client of Saʿīd ibn Naṣr and long-time resident of Shāṭiba—kept constant company with Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣadafī, married into his family, and received the greater part of his autograph manuscripts.
He studied jurisprudence with Abū Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar.
Setting out on his travels, he heard hadith from Ibn ʿAbbāsa and Abū Baḥr ibn al-ʿĀṣī; in al-Thaghr he learned from Abū al-Ḥajjāj al-Mayūrqī; in al-Mahdiyya from Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Māzarī (1), from whom he received al-Muʿlim; and in Mecca from Ruzayn al-ʿAbdarī (2) and from Ibn al-Ghazāl, the transmitter through Karīma.
Al-Abbār (3) said: “He was well-versed in the transmitted reports, competent in Qurʾānic exegesis, a preserver of subsidiary legal rulings, insightful in the Arabic language, a Sufi, possessed of a fair share of kalām, eloquent and persuasive. Together with dignity, forbearance, humility and habitual fasting, he held the Friday pulpit of Murcia, then the judgeship of Shāṭiba, and he taught Qurʾān recitation. Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Hudhayl studied under him, even though older than he. He authored the book Shajarat al-Wahm al-Mutaraqqiya ilā Dhurwat al-Fahm (The Tree of Illusion Ascending to the Summit of Understanding), a work to which no one had previously aspired. The leading shaykhs of our generation transmitted from him. He died at the beginning of 566 AH, aged seventy.”