Muhammad al-Mundhiri, al-Sayf Ahmad ibn al-Majd, Abu Bakr ibn al-Anmati, al-Fakhr ʿAli ibn Ahmad, al-Shams ibn al-Kamal, al-Shams ibn al-Zayn, al-Taqi ibn al-Wasiti, Ibrahim ibn Hamd, and several others.
By written authorization (ijāza) he also transmitted to ʿUmar ibn al-Qawwās and al-ʿImad ibn Badran.
His audition is sound, though most of it dates to the year 605 AH (1).
Ibn al-Najjar said: “His father was a dīwānī official (2) who took great care of him. He was alert, amiable, possessed reliable audition, and was marked by dignity and a pleasant disposition; he would transmit from his own autograph manuscripts.”
He died on 25 Jumada al-Akhirah (3), 616 AH, and was buried at the foot of Mount Qasiun.
64 – al-ʿUkbarī, Abū al-Baqāʾ ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Husayn ibn ʿAbd Allah*
The shaykh, the imam, the erudite scholar, the accomplished grammarian, Muḥibb al-Dīn, Abū al-Baqāʾ ʿAbd Allah ibn
(1) That is, he was present and benefited from his father’s teaching.
(2) The manuscript reads “diwanan,” but we have corrected it, for the author, quoting Ibn al-Najjar in “Tarikh al-Islam,” says: “His father held a secretarial post in the state chancery (*diwan*); he let him attend, cared for him, and enabled him to collect hadith booklets.”
(3) This is Ibn al-Najjar’s dating, whereas al-Mundhiri places his death in Rajab of the same year. Al-Kamal Ibn al-Adim, in “Bughyat al-talab,” comments: “ʿAbd al-ʿAzim likewise said he died in Rajab, yet I found in my own notes that Dawud b. Ahmad b. Mulaʿib died in Damascus on Saturday, 25 Jumada al-Akhira.” It seems al-Mundhiri drew the date from Ibn al-Dubaythi, who wrote: “It has reached us that he died in Damascus in Rajab 616—Allah knows best.” Because Ibn al-Dubaythi expresses uncertainty (“it has reached us”), the date given by Ibn al-Najjar and those who followed him appears more reliable—Allah knows best.
(*) Yaqut, Muʿjam al-buldan, 3/705; Ibn al-Dubaythi, Tarikh (MS Paris 5922), fol. 90–91; Suyuti, Inbaʾ al-ruwah, 2/116–118; al-Mundhiri, Takmila, 2: entry 1662; Ibn Shaddad, Dhayl al-rawdatayn, 119–120; Ibn Khallikan, Wafayat al-aʿyan, 3/100–101; Talkhis Majmaʿ al-adab, 5/…