I said, “What is this? Fear Allah! Soothsayers—and even Ibn Sayyad—claim insight into what people conceal in their hearts.
Al-Ḥarīrī would wear whatever came to hand, whether embroidered or brightly coloured, and he described himself in verse:
A pauper—yet endowed with piety and devout restraint;
A shaykh—yet, when it comes to debauchery, an imam!
The rest of his biography is recorded in History of Islam (1).
145 – Al-Qifṭī, Abū al-Ḥusayn ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf ibn Ibrāhīm
The most honourable judge, the unparalleled vizier, Jamāl al-Dīn, Abū al-Ḥusayn ʿAlī ibn Yūsuf ibn Ibrāhīm al-Shaybānī, known as al-Qifṭī, the Egyptian—author of History of the Grammarians.
His other works include Accounts of the Authors and Their Compositions, Accounts of the Seljuqs, and The History of Egypt.
He was a versatile scholar who amassed a library of books beyond description, and he served as vizier in Aleppo.
He died in Ramadan, in the year 646 AH.