Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn—al-Azajī, al-Maʾmūnī, the Hanbalī, associate of the scholar Nāṣiḥ al-Islām, and son of Ibn al-Mannī (1).

He was born in Ṣafar, 549 AH. He studied jurisprudence with Ibn al-Mannī, from whom he also received hadith, and he heard the Mashyakhat Shuhda from her. He likewise took narrations from Lāhiq ibn Kārīh. After his teacher’s death he was put in charge of the Maʾmūnīyah Mosque, and he held a discussion circle in the Jāmiʿ al-Qaṣr; his brilliance was unmistakable.

He authored works on the rational sciences and a separate set of notes on disputed questions. Many Hanbalī students completed their training under him. He was then appointed overseer in the Dīwān al-Muṭabbaq, but complaints were lodged about his conduct; he was removed, kept in confinement for a while, released, and later endured several months of illness.

Ibn al-Najjār said: “Fakhr Ismāʿīl was outstanding in his madhhab, in the two disciplines of theology and legal theory, and in the field of juristic dispute. He was eloquent and well-equipped to rebut his opponents; people of every faction agreed on his excellence and learning…” until he said:

“Yet his personal piety was not on the same level. His son ʿAbd Allāh told me, in the course of praising him, that he had studied logic and philosophy with Ibn Marqash the Christian, and so he would frequent the church.

“I also heard from a reliable source that Fakhr wrote a book entitled Nawāmīs al-Anbiyāʾ (The Statutes of the Prophets), in which he claimed that the prophets were sages like Hermes and Aristotle. I asked some of his closest pupils about this, and they did not deny it, saying, ‘He was rather indulgent in…’”