and he remained in that state until his death. He was learned, devout, and truthful. He once recited to me, speaking of himself:

Sinners repent at my hand—
their sins have made them fear the Creator;
but my own heart is darkened by all that it has wrought—
at whose hand, then, shall I repent?

I am like a candle among people:
it gives them light while the flame consumes it.
I am like a needle that clothes others,
while my own body is stripped of garments.

He died on the twelfth of Shaʿbān in the year 611 AH, at the age of ninety-four.

His nephew, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī (1) ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ball, the book-binder, had died before him in 609 AH. He had heard hadith from Ibn al-Ṭalāyah, Ibn Nāṣir, and a number of others.

53 – al-ʿAmīdī, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad

The erudite scholar, Pillar of the Religion, author of al-Jusṭ and al-Ṭarīqah, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad—some say his name was Aḥmad—al-ʿAmīdī, al-Samarkandī, the Ḥanafī.

He excelled in the science of juridical disagreement and in dialectical debate, and he was one of the four pupils of al-Raḍī al-Naysābūrī who became famous: this man, al-Rukn al-Ṭāwūsī, al-Rukn Zādā, and al-Rukn So-and-so—his name has slipped our memory.