69 – Ibn Barrī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Barrī ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Maqdisī
The Imām, erudite savant, and pre-eminent grammarian of his day: Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Barrī ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Barrī al-Maqdisī, later resident in Egypt, a grammarian of the Shāfiʿī school.
He was born in Rajab of the year 499 AH.
He studied belles-lettres with Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik, and he heard reports from Murshid ibn Yaḥyā al-Madīnī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Rāzī, ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Muḥammad al-Maʿāfirī, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥaḍramī, Abū al-Barakāt Muḥammad ibn Ḥamzah al-ʿIrqī, Ibn al-Ḥuṭayʾah (1), and several others.
He held the chair of Arabic in Cairo’s congregational mosque; under his tutelage leading scholars were trained, and students traveled to him from distant regions.
(*) He is given a biographical notice by: al-Azdi, Badai ʿ al-Badaiʿ, p. 89; Yaqut, al-Irshad, 7/288; Ibn al-Athir, al-Kamil, 11/215; al-Qifti, al-Inbah, p. 110; Abu Shama, al-Rawdatayn, 2/73; al-Mundhiri, al-Takmila, 1/entry 6; al-Nawawi, Tabaqat, fol. 59; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat, 3/108; Abu l-Fida, al-Mukhtasar, 3/75; al-Yamani, Isharat al-Taʿyin, fol. 23; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, fol. 9 (Paris MS 1582), as well as in Duwal al-Islam, 2/68, al-Mushtabih, p. 64, al-Ibar, 4/247, and al-Iʿlam, fol. 210; Ibn Maktum, Talkhis, fol. 91; Ibn Fadl Allah al-ʿUmari, al-Masalik, MS 23, vol. 4, fol. 461; al-Subki, Tabaqat, 7/121; al-Isnawi, Tabaqat, 1/267; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya, 12/319; Ibn al-Mulqqin, al-ʿUqd, fol. 158; the author of al-ʿAsjad al-Masbuk, fol. 94; Ibn Qadi Shuhba, Tabaqat al-Nuhat, fol. 162; al-ʿAyni, ʿUqd al-Juman, 17/fol. 28; and many others, as detailed in the marginalia of his biography in al-Mundhiri’s Takmila.
(1) Al-Dhahabi’s al-Ibar and al-Subki’s Tabaqat read al-Hutayʾa, which is not accurate. The manuscripts have al-Hutiyya: the hamza was changed to a ya, and when the two ya’s came together one was dropped in writing though still pronounced. The form adopted here—al-Hutiyya—is therefore the correct one.