Ibn Khallikān said: “His house in Mosul was a gathering place for men of learning. I met him in Aleppo and found him complete in virtue, humility, and noble character, so I kept visiting him. The mamluk atabeg Tughril had honored him and shown him great favor in Aleppo.”
I add: Those who narrated from him include Ibn al-Dubaythī, al-Qūṣī, Majd al-Dīn Ibn al-ʿAdīm, and the latter’s father in his History of Aleppo; and on his authority we were narrated to by Abū al-Faḍl Ibn ʿAsākir and Abū Saʿīd al-Qaḍāʾī (1).
He often wrote his name as “ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm,” and this is how al-Mundhirī, al-Qūṣī, Ibn al-Ḥājib, and our shaykh Ibn al-Ẓāhirī record it in his recension of Ibn al-ʿAdīm. Yet, beyond any doubt, his full name is ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm, as appears in the genealogies of his two brothers and of his nephew Sharaf al-Dīn, and as stated by Ibn Khallikān, Ibn al-Sāʿī, and Shams al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn al-Jawzī (2).
As for the Jazīrah just mentioned, it is a town built by Ibn ʿUmar, namely the amir ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿUmar al-Barqaʿīdī.
Ibn Khallikān adds: I found in the History of Ibn al-Mustawfī (3), in the entry for Abū al-Saʿādāt al-Mubārak ibn al-Athīr—meaning Majd al-Dīn—that he was from Jazīrat Aws and Kāmil, the two sons of ʿUmar ibn Aws al-Taghlibī.
It has also been said that the name refers to the governor of Iraq, Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar al-Thaqafī—and Allah knows best.
Qāḍī Saʿd al-Dīn al-Ḥārithī said: “ʿIzz al-Dīn passed away on the fifth….”