I myself heard from roughly eighty of his companions. He was a righteous, blessed shaykh—an ordinary layman, entirely devoid of formal learning!

Ibn al-Najjar said: “With him the transmission of Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī’s ḥadith reaches its highest chain, and his audition is sound.”

I add: The traditionist Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn al-Jawharī brought him along, and our shaykh Abū ʿAlī Ibn al-Hallāl (1) narrated from him most extensively in the village of Jaddiyā. He also taught in the city, in the Muzaffarī Congregational Mosque, in al-Karak, and elsewhere. He stayed in al-Karak for several months, and he dictated ḥadiths in Aleppo during Dhū al-Ḥijjah of the year 604 AH. After remaining in Syria for a year and a month, he travelled on to Baghdad and received a considerable number of gifts.

Ibn Nuqtah said: “His audition is sound, but he had a brother who forged ijazahs for their brother ʿAbd Allāh in the name of Ibn Nāṣir and others. To this day I do not know of anything that has ever been narrated on the basis of those documents; the ijazahs are invalid. As for the shaykh himself, he was a righteous man who had absolutely no knowledge of the matter.” (2)

I add: He died in Baghdad on the fourteenth of Jumādā al-Ūlā 635 AH, and he never transmitted anything taken from those forged (3) documents.

10 – al-Malik al-Muḥsin Aḥmad ibn Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb*
The ḥadith scholar, learned man, and ascetic Ẓahīr al-Dīn Aḥmad, son of the Sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb.