one who strictly followed the tradition, the scholar of the ḥadith masters, the God-fearing Taqī al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn ʿAlī ibn Surūr ibn Rāfiʿ ibn Ḥasan ibn Jaʿfar al-Maqdisī—originally from Jammāʿīl, later a Damascene by upbringing, from the Ṣāliḥiyya quarter, Ḥanbalī in doctrine, and the author of al-Ahkām al-Kubrā and al-Ṣughrā.

I have read his biography in two booklets compiled by the ḥadith master Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Maqdisī (1), which I studied with Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Aḥmad al-Bannāʾ, who had himself auditioned them from the compiler in 626 AH; almost everything I quote here is drawn from that source.

He said: He was born in 541 AH (2) at Jammāʿīl—I believe in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir. My mother (3) said: “He is four months older than her brother, Shaykh al-Muwaffaq (4),” and al-Muwaffaq was born in Shaʿbān.

He collected a vast amount of ḥadith in Damascus, Alexandria, Jerusalem, Egypt, Baghdad, Harrān, Mosul, Isfahān and Hamadhān, and he wrote down a great deal.

Among those from whom he received ḥadith are: Abū ’l-Fatḥ Ibn al-Baṭṭī, Abū ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Rabāḥ al-Farrāʾ, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlī, Hibat Allāh ibn Hilāl al-Daqqāq, Abū Zurʿah al-Maqdisī (5), Maʿmar ibn al-Fākhir, Aḥmad ibn al-Muqarrab, Yaḥyā ibn Thābit, and Abū Bakr ibn—