Anas ibn Malik, Abu al-Tufayl, and other Companions; Suwayd ibn Ghafalah, Abu Rajaʾ al-ʿAtaridi, and a number of the Followers; al-Hasan ibn ʿArafah al-ʿAbdi; Abu al-Qasim al-Baghawi; Badr ibn al-Haytham; Sulayman ibn Ahmad al-Tabarani; the jurist ʿAbd al-Wahid al-Zubayri from Ma waraʾa l-Nahr (Transoxiana); our own shaykh Rukn al-Din al-Tawusi; and, only yesterday, the musnid of the world, Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn al-Shihnah.

The hadith scholar Wajih al-Din ʿAbd al-ʿAziz ibn ʿIsa al-Lakhmi, the reader of al-Hafiz al-Salafi, said:

“Al-Hafiz passed away at dawn on Friday, the fifth of Rabiʿ al-Akhir, 576 AH, at the age of one hundred and six.”

Such was his statement regarding the shaykh’s age, but Wajih was mistaken.

He added, “Hadith was still being recited to him on Thursday until the sun set on the eve of his death, and he would correct the reader’s most subtle slips. On Friday he performed the dawn prayer at the first break of light, and shortly thereafter he died suddenly.”

I say: More than one authority has recorded his date of death in exactly this way—may Allah have mercy on him and forgive him. His grave is well known outside Alexandria. He continued marital relations and enjoyed his household until shortly before his death; indeed, he did not marry until he was already advanced in years, sometime after 550 AH.

Ibn Khallikan (1) said: His honorific was Ṣadr al-Din.