the hadith scholar, Abu Bakr al-Jīlī—later known as al-Baghdādī—the Hanbalī, the ascetic.
He was born in 528 AH.
He heard hadith from the judge Abū al-Faḍl al-Urmawī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ṣirmā, Ibn Nāṣir, and Abū al-Karam ibn al-Shahrazūrī. He devoted himself to this discipline and wrote copiously.
Those who narrated from him include Ibn al-Dubaythī, Ibn al-Najjār, al-Ḍiyāʾ, al-Taqī al-Yaldānī, al-Najīb ʿAbd al-Laṭīf, and many others.
He granted ijāza to Shaykh Shams al-Dīn, Aḥmad ibn Shaybān, Khadīja bint Rājiḥ, and al-Fakhr ʿAlī.
He was also called al-Ḥalabī, after the quarter known as Ḥalabah (1).
Al-Ḍiyāʾ said, “In Baghdad I never saw anyone equal to him in alertness and meticulous verification.”
Abū Shāmah (2) said, “He was an ascetic worshipper, reliable, and content with little.”
Ibn al-Najjār said, “He copied a great deal for his own use, though his handwriting was poor.” He added, “He was a ḥāfiẓ, precise, trustworthy, well-informed, a jurist, devout, abundant in worship, keeping to his house and leaving it only for the Friday prayer. He loved narration, honored students, was generous with the benefit he possessed, and a man of dignity despite scant means, patiently bearing his poverty in the manner of the early generations,