al-Saffarawi said, for he stated:

ʿAbd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi related: “I asked al-Salafi about the year of his birth. He answered, ‘I remember the assassination of Nizam al-Mulk in 485 AH, and I was about ten years old at the time. Had my birth been in 472 AH, as the scholars of Egypt claim, I would not be saying, “I remember the murder of Nizam al-Mulk,” for on their reckoning I would have been only thirteen or fourteen, and it is not usual for someone of that age to say, “I remember such-and-such an event.” ’ ”

He added, “From this it is clear that the opinion of al-Saffarawi—his pupil—is nearer to the mark.”

I say: Both proposed dates, 472 AH and 478 AH, are wide of the mark. Al-Salafi dictated hadith at the beginning of 492 AH, and we have already cited his own words: “I was seventeen years old, give or take a little.” Had he been born in 472 AH he would have been a full twenty; and if the date given by al-Saffarawi were correct, people would have been writing from him when he was fourteen, which is highly improbable. Accordingly, his birth must have been in 474 or 475 AH, and he was unquestionably one of those who lived beyond a hundred (1).

Ibn Khallikan remarked, “During the past three hundred years up to our own day we know of no one who reached a hundred years—much less exceeded it—apart from Qadi Abu al-Tayyib al-Tabari, who lived to one hundred and two.”

I reply: This statement does not deny the possibility of attaining a century of life; rather, it acknowledges it in the case of al-Tabari—may Allah have mercy on him. What al-Saffarawi said was merely his own considered judgment, and he was not followed in it; indeed, others disagreed with him.

I have, in fact, compiled a substantial treatise on the shaykhs who surpassed one hundred years of age (2), among them: