He answered the letter, and he had been determined to proceed to Damascus; but while he was in Aleppo they alarmed him with talk of a coming siege of Damascus, so he turned back. Some Damascenes then demanded back what they had previously given him; he returned part of it and deferred the rest (1).

In the end this harmed him, and he came within reach of ninety years. He was good-looking, his grey hair becoming, his speech winsome, his resolve strong, and he resided in the ribāṭ of al-Khilāṭiyya (2).

Among those who narrated from him were ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Rasaʿnī and Sharaf al-Dīn al-Ikrām. No one ventured to speak in his presence, and the eunuch Tughril undertook nothing without first consulting him. The jurists enjoyed his complete respect … until he said: “Old age took its toll on him until he became like a fledgling. He adopted the Baghdadi style in his deportment and dress, and the notables would dismount from their mounts for him. He travelled to Egypt to bring Sultan al-Kāmil’s daughter to her husband, King al-ʿAzīz. When al-ʿAzīz later assumed sole authority, the qadi kept to his house and continued to teach hadith until he died while still in office.

He (2) said: Senility became obvious in him; he no longer recognised those he had once known, asking each one his name and who he was. Then he fell ill and died on Wednesday, the fourteenth of Safar in 632 AH, at the age of ninety-three.

247 – Ibn Rūzbaha, Abū al-Hasan ʿAlī ibn Abī Bakr al-Baghdādī*

The shaykh, senior transmitter and long-lived scholar: Abū al-Hasan ʿAlī ibn Abī Bakr ibn Rūzbaha ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Baghdādī, al-Qalansī, the perfumer, the Sufi.

Born: in the early forties of the sixth century AH.

He received the transmission of the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī and the Part of Ibn al-ʿĀlī from Shaykh Abū al-Waqt.

He recited the Ṣaḥīḥ in Aleppo, Baghdad, Harran and Raʾs ʿAyn, and the crowds thronged to him