(1) Al-Jamal al-Qifti disparaged him, saying: “He passed through Aleppo and took up residence there. We met, and I found his discourse far from precise and well-argued. Whenever he was pressed on a point of adab (belles-lettres), he lost his temper and showed anger, fleeing from the embarrassment of having no answer. I also saw him censure the author of al-Sihah for matters that could easily be excused, while overlooking in himself faults even graver, for which the scholars rightly took him to task.” I reply: this is an unduly harsh judgment by al-Qifti against a distinguished scholar whom many biographers have highly praised. How far removed it is from the testimony of Yaqut al-Hamawi: “The people of Mosul studied under him, and the notables of the city graduated at his hands … I saw him … a free-spirited, generous, righteous man, patient with his pupils, sitting for them from before dawn until he prayed the late-night ‘isha. He was among the most proficient memorizers of the Quran, transmitting the seven canonical readings. Having devoted himself to teaching, he had no leisure for writing. Groups would recite the Quran to him simultaneously, each in a different qiraʾa, and he would listen to them all and correct each reader.” ʿIzz al-Din Ibn al-Athir likewise said: “He was expert in grammar, lexicography, and the qiraʾat; there was none like him in his time.” May Allah grant us well-being! (2) That is, the nephew of al-Diyaʾ. (3) He also granted an ijaza to al-Zaki al-Mundhiri of Damascus in Shawwal 602/June 1206. (*) Main sources: Ibn Nuqtah, al-Taqyid, fol. 146; Ibn al-Dubaithi, Tarikh, fols. 159–160 (Paris MS 5922); al-Mundhiri, Takmila, 2: 980 (biography); Mishyakhat al-Naʿʿal al-Baghdadi, shaykh no. 50; Dhayl al-Rawdatayn, 58; Mishyakhat al-Najib ʿAbd al-Latif, fol. 87; Ibn al-Saʿi, al-Jamiʿ, 9: 214–215; al-Dhahabi, Tarikh al-Islam, 18/1: 133–134; idem, al-ʿIbar, 5: 6; Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 4: 1385–1387; al-Mukhtar al-Muhtaj, fol. 81; Ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya, [reference continues].