his Maqāmāt (1), wrote a commentary on al-Lumaʿ, and also prepared a refutation of Abū Zakariyyā al-Tibrīzī (2).
Al-Qifṭī (3) said, “His spoken diction was finer than his written style. He was narrow-minded and never succeeded in completing a single work.”
Ibn al-Najjār relates: “I heard al-Mubārak ibn al-Mubārak the grammarian say, ‘Whenever a book was put up for sale, Ibn al-Khashshāb would take it, look through it, secretly remove some of its pages, and then announce, ‘It is defective.’ He would then buy it for a trifle.’ ”
I (Ibn al-Najjār) remarked, “Perhaps he repented, for ʿAbdullāh ibn Abī al-Faraj al-Jubbāʾī (4) said: ‘I saw Ibn al-Khashshāb wearing white garments, a light shining from his face. I asked, ‘What has Allah done with you?’ He answered, ‘He forgave me and admitted me into Paradise—except that Allah has turned away from me and from many scholars who do not act on what they know.’ ” (5)
He died on the 3rd of Ramadan, in 567 AH.
(1) His addenda were first printed in Istanbul in 1328 AH, and again in Cairo in 1329 AH as an appendix to al-Hariri’s Maqamat, together with Ibn Bari’s Intisar in defence of al-Hariri.
(2) He also composed al-Murtajal, a commentary on al-Jumal by al-Jurjani (Maʿjam al-Udabaʾ and Ibn Rajab’s Tabaqat mistakenly ascribe it to az-Zajjaji). Several chapters in the middle of the work were left without commentary, and he never completed his gloss on al-Lumaʿ. He likewise wrote al-Radd ʿala Ibn Babshadh (misprinted in Ibn Rajab’s Tabaqat as “Nadastad”). For the remainder of his writings, see Maʿjam al-Udabaʾ 12/51–52; Inbaʾ al-Ruwat 2/100; and Hadiyyat al-ʿArifin 1/456. Manuscript holdings for some of these works are listed in Brockelmann, Geschichte 5/168–169.
(3) See Inbaʾ al-Ruwat 2/99–100.
(4) In al-Muntazam 10/238 the nisba is corrupted to “al-Jiyani”; the correct form was already established on p. 434, note (1), in the entry on al-Rustami, no. 283.
(5) Consult al-Muntazam 10/238–239, Maʿjam al-Udabaʾ 12/52, and Ibn Rajab’s Tabaqat 1/222–223.