Suluān al-Muṭāʿ fī ʿUdwān al-Atbāʿ (Solace for the One Obeyed amid the Hostility of Followers) and a work entitled Sharḥ al-Maqāmāt (1).
He was short of stature, pleasant in appearance, and he composed poetry (2) in addition to other virtues.
He lived in Hama, was reared in Mecca, and journeyed extensively.
He was poor; his daughter’s husband took her and sold her in a certain land (3).
He died in 565 AH, in Hama.
337 – Ibn al-Khashshāb ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Ahmad al-Baghdādī*
The shaykh, the imām, the eminent scholar, the hadith expert and master grammarian: Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Ahmad ibn Ahmad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Naṣr al-Baghdādī, known as Ibn al-Khashshāb—so renowned in Arabic that his command of the language became proverbial. People even said that he had attained the rank of Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī.
(1) See the manuscript copy mentioned in Brockelmann, Geschichte, vol. 5, p. 147. He also composed a commentary on al-Hariri’s “Durrat al-ghawwas”; cf. Brockelmann, vol. 5, p. 152. For his numerous other works, consult Muʿjam al-udabaʾ 19/48–49 and Hadiyyat al-ʿarifin 2/96.
(2) Ibn Khallikan cites the following lines of his:
ʿala qadari faḍli l-marʾi taʾtī khuṭūbuhu * wa-yuʿrafu ʿinda ṣ-ṣabri fīmā yuṣībuhu
wa-man qalla fīmā yattaqīhi iṣṭibāruhu * faqad qalla fīmā yartajīhi naṣībuhu
“Calamities befall a man in proportion to his merit; it is in patience during affliction that he is truly known. Whoever shows little endurance toward what he dreads will likewise have but a small share of what he hopes for.”
(3) See Wafayāt al-aʿyān 4/397 and al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt 1/141.
(*) His biography is recorded in: Kharīdat al-qaṣr 1/82; al-Muntazam 10/238–239; Muʿjam al-udabaʾ 12/47–53; al-Kāmil 11/375–376; Inbāh al-ruwāt 2/99–103; Mirʾāt al-zamān 8/180; Wafayāt al-aʿyān 3/102–104; al-Mukhtaṣar fī akhbār al-bashar 3/52; al-ʿIbar 4/196–197; Talkhīṣ Ibn Maktūm 88–89; al-Mustafād min Dhayl Tārīkh Baghdād 134–136; Tammat al-Mukhtaṣar 2/124; Masālik al-abṣār, vol. 4, part 2, 311–316; Mirʾāt al-jinān 3/381–382; Bidāyat wa-nihāyat 12/269; Dhayl Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila 1/316, 323; Ṭabaqāt Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba 2/17–20; al-Nujūm al-zāhira 6/65; Bughyat al-wuʿāt 2/29–31; Kashf al-ẓunūn 108, 602 and elsewhere; Shadharāt al-dhahab 4/220–222; al-Falākah wa-l-maflūkūn 78–79; Hadiyyat al-ʿarifīn 1/456; Muʿjam al-maṭbūʿāt 93; Brockelmann, Geschichte, vol. 5, 167–169.