al-Ashraf expelled him from the city and proclaimed throughout the colleges: “Whoever addresses anything other than Qur’anic exegesis and jurisprudence, or ventures into the discourse of the philosophers, I will banish him.”

Thus al-Saif remained inactive in his home until he died, and he was buried in his own plot on Mount Qāsiūn.

I add: Two judges studied under him—Ṣadr al-Dīn, son of Sanī al-Dawlah, and Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn al-Zakī.

Judge Taqī al-Dīn Sulaymān ibn Ḥamzah used to report from his teacher Ibn Abī ʿUmar: “We would visit al-Saif and began to doubt whether he performed the prescribed prayers or not. One day he fell asleep, so we marked his leg with ink; the mark remained for two days, and we therefore knew that he had not performed ablution—may Allah keep us safe in our religion!”

Even so, al-Saif narrated Abu ʿUbayd’s al-Gharīb on the authority of Abū al-Fath Ibn Shatil.

Our shaykh Ibn Taymiyyah told me: “Perplexity and suspended judgement dominate al-Āmidī. He even posed to himself a question about an infinite regress of causes and declared he could find no answer, yet based his proof for the Maker on that very issue. Consequently, in his books he does not establish the existence of the Maker, the origination of the universe, the oneness of Allah, prophethood, or any of the major fundamentals.”

I comment: This only demonstrates the perfection of his intellect, for such matters cannot be decisively established by reason alone; they are upheld by the Book and the Sunnah (1). In both realms al-Saif had reached the highest degree, and his mastery of the rational sciences was unsurpassed; scholars used to crowd into his circle.

Ibn Khallikān said: I heard Ibn ʿAbd al-Salām say, “I have never heard anyone deliver a lesson better than al-Saif; it was as though he were preaching.” He held him in great esteem.