- Ibn al-ʿIzz: Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī
The Shaykh of the Ḥanbalīs, Taqī al-Dīn, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad, son of the hadith scholar ʿIzz al-Dīn Muḥammad, son of the ḥadith master ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī, al-Ṣāliḥī.
Born: 591 AH.
He heard hadith from al-Khushūʿī and several others, and while in Isfahān from Asʿad ibn Rūḥ, ʿAfīfa, and many more.
He remained in close company with his maternal grandfather, Shaykh Muwaffaq al-Dīn, until he excelled and memorised his work al-Kāfī. He then studied jurisprudence in Baghdad under al-Fakhr Ghulām Ibn al-Manī. He taught, issued legal opinions, and many jurists completed their training under him.
Those who narrated from him include al-ʿIzz ibn al-ʿImād, al-Shams ibn al-Wāsiṭī, Judge Taqī al-Dīn, and Muḥammad ibn Mushriq.
He was devout, self-denying, eloquent, and dignified, handsome in appearance, and greatly honoured by the authorities. During the Khwārazmian incursion he ordered that the roads in al-Ṣāliḥiyya be barricaded, arms and men assembled, and that precautions be taken. When the Khwārazmians drew near to al-Mayṭūr he went out to them with a contingent of men; their envoy arrived bearing assurances of safety, declaring that they would not pass through the district without the Shaykh’s permission. When they saw him, the khans dismounted, greeted the Shaykh, and kissed his hand. They then skirted the foot of the mountain to the ʿAqaba, and from there to al-Mizzah, harming no one. However, Ḥasan, the page of Ibn al-Muʿtamid, attacked them and was killed.
The Shaykh died in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir, 643 AH (1).