His teacher Ibn al-Zāghūnī took special care of him, trained him in the craft of exhortation, and he applied himself to the various branches of learning. He studied Arabic under Abū Manṣūr Ibn al-Jawālīqī, and as many as one hundred thousand people would at times attend his gatherings; God cast into people’s hearts both acceptance of him and a sense of awe.

He said (1): “He was austere toward the world and content with little of it. He used to preach in the Palace Mosque, in al-Ruṣāfa, at Bāb Badr and elsewhere … until he stated: ‘He never jested with anyone, never played with a child, and never ate from a source whose lawfulness was not certain.’ ”

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-Dubaythī said in his History (2): “Our shaykh, Jamāl al-Dīn, the author of works in many sciences—Qur’an commentary, jurisprudence, hadith, history and more—was the final authority in the knowledge of hadith and its disciplines, able to distinguish the sound report from the unsound. He was among the most eloquent of speakers, the clearest in arrangement, the sweetest-tongued, and the most graceful in expression. He studied jurisprudence with al-Dīnawarī and learned the art of preaching from Abū al-Qāsim al-ʿAlawī. Blessing was placed in his life and his knowledge. He related his compilations on numerous occasions, and in Wāsiṭ he recited to me, of his own composition:

O dweller in this world, prepare yourself
and await the day of parting.
Lay in provisions for the journey,
for soon the companions will be urged on.
Weep over your sins with tears
that stream like clouds from your eyes.
O you who have squandered your life,
are you content to exchange what perishes for what endures?

I asked him more than once about the year of his birth, and he would answer, “It was roughly in the year ten.” I then asked his brother ʿUmar, and he said, “Approximately in the year five hundred and eight.”