and leading scholars studied under him. In al-Anbar he auditioned hadith from his own father and from Khalifah ibn Mahfuz, and in Baghdad from Abu Mansur ibn Khayrun, ʿAbd al-Wahhab al-Anmati, the judge Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Qasim al-Shahrazuri, and others. He transmitted a number of literary works.

Ibn al-Najjar said, “Among those who related to us from him were Abu Bakr al-Mubarak ibn al-Mubarak the grammarian, Ibn al-Dubaythi, and ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad al-Khabbaz.” He added, “He was a towering imam in grammar—reliable, chaste, a skilled debater, abundantly learned, scrupulous, ascetic, devout, and God-fearing. He would take nothing from anyone. His life was austere; his food and clothing were coarse (1). He attached himself to nothing of this world and persisted in the soundest (2) course.”

Among his writings are: Hidayat al-Dhahib fi Maʿrifat al-Madhahib (Guidance of the Seeker on the Knowledge of the Schools); Bidayat al-Hidaya (The Beginning of Guidance); a book on the principles of religion; al-Nur al-Lamiʿ fi Iʿtiqad al-Salaf al-Salih (The Shining Light on the Creed of the Pious Predecessors); Manthur al-ʿUqud fi Tajrid al-Hudud (Scattered Necklaces: A Concise Treatment of Legal Definitions); al-Tanqih fi al-Khilaf (Revision on Juristic Disagreement); al-Jumal fi ʿIlm al-Jadal (Sentences on Dialectics); Alfaz Taduru Bayna al-Nuzzar (Expressions Current Among the Debaters); al-Insaf fi al-Khilaf bayna al-Basriyyin wa-al-Kufiyyin (Equity in the Dispute Between the Basrans and the Kufans); Asrar al-ʿArabiyya (The Secrets of Arabic); ʿUqud al-Iʿrab (Necklaces of Parsing); Miftah al-Mudhakara (Key to Study Sessions); Kallā wa Kiltā (On “Kallā” and “Kiltā”); Law wa Mā (On “Law” and “Mā”); Kayfa (On “Kayfa”); al-Alif wa-al-Lām (On the Definite Article); a treatise on “Yaʿfūna”; Hilyat al-ʿArabiyya (The Adornment of Arabic); Lumaʿ al-Adilla (Flashes of Evidence); al-Wajiz fi al-Tasrif (The Concise Treatise on Morphology); Iʿrab al-Qurʾan (Parsing the Qur’an); Diwan al-Lugha (Lexicon of the Language); a commentary on the Maqamat; a commentary on the Diwan of al-Mutanabbi; a commentary on the Hamasah; a commentary on the Seven Odes; Nuzhat al-Alibbaʾ fi Tabaqat al-Udabaʾ (The Scholars’ Excursion Through the Classes of Men of Letters); Tarikh al-Anbar (History of Anbar); a book on Sufism; and a book on dream interpretation.

Ibn al-Najjar went on to enumerate the titles