He heard from Abū al-Ḥusayn Ibn al-Farrāʾ and Ibn al-Samarqandī, though he himself was illiterate.
Those who narrated from him include al-Dubaithī, Ibn al-Najjar, Ibn Khalīl, Ibn ʿAbd al-Dāʾim, al-Najīb, and his brother al-ʿIzz. He also granted an ijāzah to al-Fakhr ʿAlī.
He died in Shawwāl of the year 601 (1) AH. In that same year Yūsuf ibn Kāmil al-Khaffāf, Muḥammad ibn Ḥamd al-Artāḥī, Shumaym al-Ḥillī, and Muḥammad ibn al-Khuṣayb also passed away.
214 – Al-Bustambān, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ayyūb al-Harbī
The shaykh, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ayyūb al-Harbī, a farmer and vegetable-seller (2), nicknamed al-Bustambān (3); his Qurʾānic commentary was entitled al-Nāṭūr.
He heard from Hibat Allāh ibn al-Ḥuṣayn, and was the sole person to receive transmission from Abū al-ʿIzz ibn
(1) This is how it appears in the manuscripts and it is the reading adopted by the author here, as shown by his mention of the deaths of al-Khuffaf, al-Irtahi, Shamim and Ibn al-Khusayb. In my opinion it is a mere slip of the pen, for all authorities agree that he died in Shawwal 602 AH; the author himself states the same date in his Taʾrikh al-Islam and elsewhere.
(*) Ibn al-Dubaythi, Taʾrikh, fol. 94 (Paris MS 5922); al-Mundhiri, Takmila, 2, no. 878; Ibn al-Saʿi, al-Jamʿ al-Mukhtasar, 9/157; al-Najib, Mashyakha, fols. 79-82; al-Dhahabi, Taʾrikh al-Islam, 18/1/61; al-Mukhtasar al-Muhtaj, 2/147; al-Dhahabi, al-ʿIbar, 5/2; Ibn Nasir al-Din, Tawdih al-Mushtabih, fol. 104; Ibn Taghribirdi, al-Nujum al-Zahira, 6/188; Ibn al-ʿImad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, 5/3.
(2) The nisba refers to the cultivation and sale of green vegetables.
(3) Al-Mundhiri and Ibn Nasir al-Din spell the nisba letter by letter: with a damma on the initial b, a sukun on the s, a fatha on the third letter t, a sukun on the n, followed by another b, then an alif and a final n, giving Bustanban; it is also reported in the form al-Bustanban, with the alif explicitly written.