—al-Shāṭibī, the blind master and the poet who put the Shāṭibiyyah and the Rāʾiyyah into verse.

Those—such as al-Sakhāwī and others—who give him the kunya Abū al-Qāsim mention no other personal name for him, whereas most scholars state that he is Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim. Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Ṣalāḥ also lists him in his biographical work Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyyah.

He was born in 538 AH.

In his home town he recited the seven canonical readings to Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-ʿĀṣ al-Nafrī. He later travelled to Valencia, where he read the various readings with Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Hudhayl, presented to him al-Taysīr, and received from him a number of books. He likewise studied with Abū al-Ḥasan ibn al-Niʿmah, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Saʿādah, Abū Muḥammad ibn ʿĀshir, Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, and ʿUlaym ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Afterward he set out for the Pilgrimage and, en route, heard hadith from Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī and others.

His intelligence was incandescent. He enjoyed unrivalled mastery in the sciences of Qurʾān readings, orthography, grammar, jurisprudence, and hadith, and he possessed a polished poetic style, coupled with scrupulous piety, God-consciousness, devotion, and dignified bearing.

He took up residence in Egypt, assumed the chair of teaching, and his fame spread widely.

Among those who transmitted from him were Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Khayrah, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Janjālī, Abū Bakr ibn Waḍḍāḥ, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Jumayyizī, and Abū Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wārith, the reciter of the Golden Muṣḥaf.

Those who studied the seven readings under him include Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā ibn Yūsuf al-Maqdisī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Saʿīd al-Shāfiʿī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Qurṭubī, and Abū—