and Ibn ʿAbd al-Dāʾim, and al-Tāj ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Zayn al-Umanaʾ, and his son the judge Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿImād, and Shaykh Shams al-Dīn ibn Abī ʿUmar, and al-Fakhr ʿAlī, and al-Shams Muḥammad ibn al-Kamāl, and several others.

Shaykh al-Ḍiyāʾ said: He was not markedly dark in complexion (1), neither tall nor short; his forehead was broad and his brow finely drawn, his eyes were light, his nose straight, and he kept his hair neatly trimmed. His eyesight, however, was weak. He travelled to Baghdad twice, memorised the Qurʾān and—so it is said—the singular narrations (gharīb) of al-ʿUzayrī (2), as well as al-Khirqī’s compendium. He lectured from Tafsīr and from al-Hidāyah, engaged in questions of juristic disagreement, and I saw him debate more than once. He was learned in the Qurʾānic readings, grammar, and the laws of inheritance. He studied the variant readings with Abū al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAsākir al-Baṭāʾiḥī and later taught them himself. He authored al-Furūq fī al-Masāʾil al-Fiqhiyyah (The Distinctions in Juridical Questions) and began a book on legal rulings but did not complete it; the press of his teaching and other duties left him little time for writing. He stayed in Ḥarrān for a period and its people benefited from him. When Shaykh Muwaffaq al-Dīn was in the city, ʿImād would occupy the teaching post on the mountain, but when Muwaffaq ascended, he would descend and take over (3). I heard Shaykh Muwaffaq say:

“We are not able to do what ʿImād does; he would win people’s hearts, and he might repeat a lesson for a student from the last part of the night until daybreak.”

Al-Ḍiyāʾ further said: He would sit in the town’s congregational mosque from dawn until night-fall, leaving only for a necessity, teaching the Qurʾān and the sciences; and when the students finished, he would occupy himself with prayer. I asked Shaykh Muwaffaq al-Dīn about him, and he said:

“He was among the best of our companions and the greatest of them…"