Al-Taqī ʿUbayd (1) said: “Abū al-Khaṭṭāb, the man of the two lineages, was a polymath with wide-ranging travels. He produced outstanding books and finely wrought discussions, and he was held in veneration by both the elite and the common folk. When asked about his birth, he replied, ‘In the year 546 AH.’
Another report from him gives a different date.
I say: it has been said that he was born in 544 AH, and it has also been said: in 548 AH.
Those who received from him by ijāza include our two shaykhs—Sharaf al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Yūnīnī and Ibn Khawājā Imām—as well as others.
I have read, in the handwriting of the ḥāfiẓ al-Ḍiyāʾ, that Ibn Diḥya died on Tuesday night, 14 Rabīʿ al-Awwal 633 AH.
Ibn al-Najjār (2) said: “He came to us and dictated from memory. He claimed to have heard from Ibn al-Jawzī; that in Isfahan he heard al-Ṭabarānī’s Muʿjam from al-Ṣaydalanī; that he heard in Nishapur, Merv, and Wāsiṭ; and that he had heard from a number of scholars in al-Andalus. Yet I found people unanimously judging him a liar and weak, maintaining that he claimed hearings he had never attended. The signs of this were plain in his speech and in his manner, and the heart recoiled from listening to him.
“He settled in Egypt and won the favor of Sultan al-Kāmil, who showed him great deference. I was told that the sultan would even have the schools levelled for him whenever he stood up to …” He went on to say:
“His genealogy is not sound. Still, he was a skilled ḥāfiẓ, fully versed in grammar and language, Ẓāhirī in jurisprudence, and much given to disparaging—”