- Ibn Rājih — Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Khalaf al-Maqdisī
The shaykh, the imam, the erudite scholar, the accomplished master, the ḥāfiẓ, Najm al-Dīn, Chief of Judges — Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad, son of Imām Shihāb al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Khalaf ibn Rājih ibn Bilāl al-Maqdisī, later al-Ṣāliḥī, first a Hanbalī (1) and then a Shāfiʿī.
Birth: 578 AH.
He auditioned ḥadith from Yaḥyā al-Thaqafī (2), Ibn Ṣadaqah al-Janzāwī, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Khirāqī, and, in Baghdad, from Ibn al-Jawzī. In Hamadhān he kept the company of al-Rukn al-Ṭāwūsī until he became his repetitor. He then traveled to Bukhara, applied himself, excelled, his fame spreading far and wide, and he came to master the Shāfiʿī school.
Among the works he had by heart was the book The Harmonization of the Two Ṣaḥīḥs (3).
Scholars studied with him and earned qualification through his instruction. He was devoted to night vigil, profoundly reverent, given to much worship, and extraordinarily intelligent.
Shaykh al-Ḍiyāʾ said, “I heard ʿUmar ibn Ṣawmaʿ (4) mention that he saw the Truth.”