Abū Ghālib ibn Abī al-Maʿālī ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn ibn Mandawayh al-Asbahānī, al-Surijānī, the Sufi.

He was born in 522 AH.

In his later years he heard ḥadith from Naṣr ibn al-Muẓaffar and from Abū al-Waqt al-Sijzī.

In Damascus he narrated the Ṣaḥīḥ and several other selections with elevated chains of transmission.

Those who received traditions from him include the two Zakīs—al-Barzalī and al-Mundhirī—together with Ibn Khalīl, al-Ḍiyāʾ, al-Yaldānī, al-Qūṣī, al-Muḥyī ibn ʿAṣrūn, Abū al-Ghanāʾim ibn ʿAllān, Abū Bakr ibn ʿUmar al-Mizzī, ʿAlī ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ṣaṣrā, al-Fakhr ʿAlī, and—by written authorization—Abū Ḥafṣ ibn al-Qawwās.

Ibn Nuqṭah (1) said: “He is trustworthy and upright, his audition is sound; I heard from him in Damascus, and he passed away on Friday, the seventeenth of Jumādā al-Ūlā, 610 AH.”

I (the author) add: I do not know under whom he read, yet he was well-versed in the variant Qurʾānic readings.

Some have vocalized al-Surijānī with a ḍammah on the sīn, a kasrah on the rāʾ, and a silent nūn (2)—and Allah knows best.

In that same year there also died: Tāj al-Umanaʾ Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAsākir; the preacher of Córdoba, Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Ḥimyarī, who was in his nineties; al-Fakhr Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAlī al-Azajī, the Ḥanbalī theologian and author known as Ghulām Ibn al-Munī; Zaynab bint Ibrāhīm al-Qaysiyyah, the wife of al-Dawlaʿī; and the vizier Muʿizz al-Dīn.