formal dignity and awe such as no one else was known to command; he was patient and reserved. Whenever he held public office he proved himself trustworthy and above reproach. He was exceedingly gracious, and his family originally hailed from Qayrawān.

He alone transmitted the Sīra from Ibn Rifāʿa, having heard it in 556 AH when it was read aloud by Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī al-Qaysī, with Ibn Rifāʿa’s own corrections written beneath the text.

ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥājib said: “He was a reliable, well-established shaykh who fully understood what he had heard, and no ulterior motive was ever ascribed to him.

“I have seen the handwriting of Taqī al-Dīn Ibn al-Anmāṭī praising our shaykh in the finest terms and listing among his auditions the Sīra. Indeed, mention of the Sīra in connection with the shaykh had become like the Opening Chapter of the Qur’an: he would hasten to recite it before the reader, was its guardian and interpreter. Of all the shaykhs I met in Egypt, none equalled him in narration or comprehension. He never transmitted except with his master copy in hand, nor would he allow the reader to blur the pronunciation. His father, moreover, had been a close companion of the Egyptian caliph.

“I once attended him when one of the listeners offered him a present. He refused it, compensated the man for it, and said, ‘What occasion is this for giving gifts?’

“He had great stamina for listening; we would study with him from dawn until the mid-afternoon prayer.

“In all my journeys I never met a shaykh of eighty-five years whose deportment, bearing, and upright posture were finer than his, nor anyone more eloquent or more graceful in presentation. Truly he was an ornament of the Egyptian realms.”

Ibn Nuqṭa said: “I heard the ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm speak about his audition of the Sīra, saying, ‘It was by the reading of Yaḥyā ibn ʿAlī, and he was a liar.’ Yet Ibn al-Anmāṭī confirmed and authenticated that audition.” ⦗1⦘

I say: He also transmitted al-ʿUnwān on the variant readings from the noble Abū al-Futūḥ