Al-Ḍiyāʾ said: “He was a jurist, an imām, and an accomplished debater. He studied under Ibn al-Mannī, heard a vast amount of ḥadīth and committed it to writing, and after the reconquest (1) he remained for years in Nablus, teaching in its western congregational mosque. Many people benefited from him. He was easy-going, generous, munificent, of fine character and humble. He returned to Damascus shortly before his death, applying himself diligently to recording and transmitting ḥadīth. He produced commentaries on al-Muqniʿ and on al-ʿUmda by our teacher Muwaffaq al-Dīn, and he endowed the manuscripts of the ḥadīth he had heard.”

Al-Ḥājib said: “He was comely in appearance, free of affectation, greatly beneficial, ever speaking the truth, a man of religion and virtue who feared no blame for the sake of Allah. He was eager for ḥadīth; he would come down from the mountain to anyone who wished to hear from him, and would sometimes give his own lunch to the person reading to him. With his death, much ḥadīth transmission—meaning in Damascus—came to an end.”

He died on the seventh of Dhū al-Ḥijjah, 624 AH.

I say: Among those who narrated from him were al-Birzālī, al-Ḍiyāʾ, Ibn al-Majd, al-Sharaf Ibn al-Nābulusī, al-Jamāl Ibn al-Ṣābūnī, al-Shams Ibn al-Kamāl, al-Tāj ʿAbd al-Khāliq, Muḥammad ibn Balghazā, Dāwūd ibn Maḥfūẓ, ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Zayd, al-ʿIzz Ibn al-Farrāʾ, al-ʿIzz Ibn al-ʿImād, al-ʿImād ʿAbd al-Ḥāfiẓ, al-Taqī ibn Muʾmin, Sitt al-Ahl daughter of al-Nāṣiḥ, Isḥāq ibn Sulṭān, Abū Jaʿfar Ibn al-Mawāzīnī, and others.

I have set out fuller details of his life in my History of Islam.

The earliest narration he heard in Damascus was in 567 AH, from ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Kinānī. I myself heard many narrations from that man’s pupils.

In that same year died: the exemplar Abū Aḥmad Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Sayyid Būnah al-Khuzaʿī, companion of Ibn Hudhayl; Dāwūd ibn al-Fākhir; the Tatar despot Chinggis Khan; and the judge