the Station and performed two units of prayer. He then supplicated: “O Allah, You know my private state and my public state, so accept my excuse; You know my need, so grant me what I ask for…”—and so on to the end of the ḥadith.

113 – Ibn al-Anmāṭī, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Anṣārī *
The shaykh, scholar, ḥāfiẓ, accomplished master, and benefactor of Greater Syria; Taqī al-Dīn, Abū Ṭāhir Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Muḥsin ibn Abī Bakr ibn Hibat Allah al-Anṣārī, the Egyptian Shāfiʿī, known as Ibn al-Anmāṭī.

He said: “I was born in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of the year 570 AH.”

He heard ḥadith from the judge Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥaḍramī, Hibat Allah ibn ʿAlī al-Būṣīrī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Labbānī, Shujāʿ ibn Muḥammad al-Mudlijī, Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Artāḥī, and a number of others.

He then travelled to Damascus, settled there, and narrated extensively from Abū Ṭāhir al-Khushūʿī, al-Qāsim ibn ʿAsākir, and scholars of their rank.

In Iraq he studied under Abū al-Fatḥ al-Mandāʾī, Abū Aḥmad ibn Sukaynah, and Ḥanbal ibn ʿAbd Allah; he returned with Ḥanbal’s transmission and had the Musnad read aloud in Damascus. He copied both the higher and the lower isnāds in his elegant, graceful hand, procured the principal manuscripts, and pursued knowledge with relentless dedication.

ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥājib said: “He was trustworthy, a ḥāfiẓ, outstanding, eloquent, and wide-ranging in transmission. He acquired portions and books that no one else managed to gather, and he was easy-going…”