Al-Dabbāj, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Jābir ibn ʿAlī al-Ishbīlī
A towering scholar, acknowledged head of the Qur’an readers and grammarians of al-Andalus.

He learned the canonical variant readings from Abū al-Ḥasan Najba ibn Yaḥyā and Abū Bakr ibn Ṣāf, and he studied Arabic with Abū Dharr ibn Abī Rukb al-Khushanī and Ibn Kharūf. For fifty years he occupied the chair of instruction in both disciplines.

Al-Abbār (1) reports that he led the prayers in the ʿAdabbas Congregational Mosque (2).

He—Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Jābir ibn ʿAlī al-Ishbīlī al-Dabbāj—was a man of virtue and piety. He was born in 566 AH and died in Seville, in Shaʿbān (3) 646 AH, only a few days after the Christians—may Allah curse them—entered the city under the terms of a truce. The ringing of their church-bells and the silencing of the adhān distressed and shocked him; agitation and sorrow consumed him until he met his end. Some even say he died on the very day they entered.

I add: he was a decisive authority in matters of transmission, sound in critical inquiry, and he used to teach the Kitāb of Sībawayh.

Among those who studied with him were Abū al-Ḥasan Ibn ʿUsfūr and many others, and the lord of Castile subsequently took possession of the city—