—al-Ḥasan al-Sakhāwī, al-Zayn Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Kurdī, al-Sadīd ʿĪsā ibn Makkī, al-Kamāl ʿAlī ibn Shujāʿ, and others.

Abū Shāmah (1) said: al-Sakhāwī informed us that the reason al-Shāṭibī left his homeland was that the authorities wanted to appoint him to the pulpit. He pleaded the excuse of going on ḥajj, departed his town, and never returned, out of pious restraint from the flattering descriptions they obliged preachers to lavish upon the rulers—phrases he did not deem lawful. He then endured severe poverty, heard ḥadith from al-Silafī, and was summoned by the eminent Judge al-Fāḍil to teach recitation at his madrasa; he accepted on certain conditions. He also visited Jerusalem in 587 AH.

Al-Sakhāwī said: I am certain that he was a man of spiritual unveiling and that he asked Allah to conceal his inner state.

Al-Abbār (2) said: He assumed the chair of teaching in Egypt; his rank became great and his fame spread far and wide. The leadership of Qurʾān instruction ultimately rested with him. He died in Egypt on the 28th of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, 590 AH.

I (the author) say: He had children who narrated from him, among them Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad.

Abū al-Ḥusayn the ḥāfiẓ of Baʿlabakk related to us; ʿAlī ibn Hibat Allāh related to us; al-Shāṭibī related to us; Ibn Hudhayl related to us a ḥadith which I have cited in my al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (3).

It is also reported from him that he said, “No one recites this ode of mine without Allah benefiting him by it, for I composed it for Allah alone.”

He likewise composed a dālīyah poem of about five hundred lines; whoever recites it will have encompassed knowledge of