his religion, treating it like a plaything. When the caliphal ijāza issued by al-Nāṣir li-Dīn Allāh was announced, he submitted a humble petition asking to be licensed, but al-Nāṣir wrote on it: “Not fit to transmit.” For a long time afterward he kept sending us denunciations about people. Later, after intercession was made on his behalf, the license was granted.

He was always disparaging the ḥadīth transmitters, saying, “They are ignorant; they know nothing of the rational sciences or the true meanings of ḥadīth— they stick only to the outward wording.” A number of people took narration from him, but I neither heard from him nor spoke a single word to him. He died on the eighth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal (1) 610 AH.

I say: Among those who learned from him was Shaykh Majd al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah.

25 – Ibn Jurj, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Qurṭubī

The long-lived, authoritative transmitter, Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Maṭarraf ibn Saʿīd ibn Jurj (2), originally from Córdoba. He was the one who heard al-Nasāʾī’s Sunan from Abū Jaʿfar al-Biṭrawjī.

Those who narrated from him include Ibn al-Ṭaylasān; he also granted an ijāza to Ibn Masdī. He lived ninety-one years and died in Rajab 611 AH. Only four transmitters separated him from al-Nasāʾī.