and with it he erected a college in 601 AH, together with a hadith institute and a funerary vault. Students flocked to him, working under his supervision for both learning and livelihood, and he became the acknowledged reference for the administration of the state in Aleppo, until chill-induced ailments and debility overcame him, whereupon he would recite (1):

Whoever longs for length of days must gird himself
with patience against the loss of his loved ones;
And whoever lives on will taste within himself
the very things he once wished upon his enemies.

al-Abarqūhī (2) said: “He travelled to Egypt as an envoy more than once, the last journey being the one in which I heard hadith from him.”

Ibn Khallikān (3) said: “His kunya was at first Abū al-ʿIzz, but he later changed it to Abū al-Maḥāsin.

“He wrote in one of his works: ‘The first person from whom I received knowledge was my shaykh Ṣāʾin al-Dīn al-Qurṭubī; I kept to his lessons for eleven years, and I read with him most of what he transmitted of the books on qirāʾāt, hadith and its commentaries, and tafsīr. Among my teachers was Sirāj al-Dīn al-Jayyānī; I read the entire Ṣaḥīḥ of Muslim with him, and al-Wāḥidī’s al-Wasīṭ in the year 559 AH in Mosul. Another of them was Fakhr al-Dīn Abū al-Riḍā (3) ibn al-Shahrazūrī; I heard from him the Musnad of Abū ʿAwānah, the Musnad of Abū Dāwūd, the Musnad of al-Shāfiʿī, and the Jāmiʿ of al-Tirmidhī…’”

Ibn Khallikān (5) added: “I took a great deal from him, and the ruler of Irbil wrote to him on my behalf and on behalf of my brother; he favoured us and received us graciously.”