even to the point that you duped the Mongols?” He replied, “I am in Tabriz, entirely in your grasp; how could I wield authority over those who are out there?”

Hulagu let fly an arrow at him, and he cried out, “A kindness, O Khwānd!” His brother rebuked him, “Silence! Do you address this dog with such words now that the moment has arrived?” Hulagu then loosed a second arrow that finished him off, and the heads of al-Ẓāhir and their companions were struck (1).

259 – Shuʿlah, Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Mawṣilī

An imam, master of Qur’an recitation, and sharp-witted scholar, Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Ḥusayn al-Mawṣilī, the Ḥanbalī reader known as Shuʿlah, authored the poem “The Candle on the Seven Readings” and a commentary on the Shāṭibiyyah, among other works.

He studied the canonical readings with ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Irbilī. His verse is exceptionally concise yet of the highest quality. He was pious, upright, God-fearing, and humble.

Taqī al-Dīn Abū Bakr al-Maqṣaṣātī told me: I heard Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz say, “Shuʿlah was sleeping beside me; when he awoke he said, ‘I have just seen the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. I asked him for knowledge, and he gave me a few dates to eat.’” Abū al-Ḥasan added, “From that moment the gates of knowledge were opened for him.”

Al-Maqṣaṣātī, who had attended Shuʿlah’s sessions and listened to his discussions, also told me: “He died in Ṣafar, 656 AH, at the age of thirty-three.” (2)