Boastful by nature and ever full of bombast (1), he would curse Abū Tammām and Abū al-ʿAlāʾ and belittle Imruʾ al-Qays, so that he came to be counted among the learned madmen. Ibn al-Mustawfī, Ibn al-Najjār, and others censured him, saying that he spoke irreverently about the Prophets, treated their miracles lightly, and even tried to rival the Qur’an—though, paradoxically, whenever he recited it he was moved to profound humility and would fall in prostration.

He studied with “the King of the Grammarians,” Abū Nizār, and with Ibn al-Khashshāb. He also compiled a Hamāsa—an anthology consisting solely of his own verse—but a truly good thought is rare in his poetry, and it is said that he later repented. He died in Mosul in 601 AH, at well over ninety years of age.

209 – Saʿd al-Khayr’s daughter, Fāṭima bint Abī al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Anṣārī*
The shaykha, the venerable musnida, Umm ʿAbd al-Karīm Fāṭima, daughter of the ḥadīth scholar and merchant Abū al-Ḥasan Saʿd al-Khayr ibn Muḥammad ibn Sahl al-Anṣārī of Valencia.

Her birth: Isfahan, 522 AH.
She (2) attended in person while only three years old and heard from Fāṭima al-Jawzdāniyya a selection of