He was granted authorization to transmit by al-Muʾayyad al-Tusi and by Abu Ruh al-Harawi; in his later years he studied with Abu al-Hasan al-Qatiʿi in Baghdad and with Ibn al-Lutti in al-Karak.

He was an intelligent Hanafi jurist, accomplished debater, man of letters, and poet of exquisite verse, versed in several sciences. Upon his father’s death he assumed the sultanate, and the townspeople loved him. His two uncles, al-Kāmil and al-Ashraf, marched against him and besieged him for months; in 626 AH he withdrew from Damascus, contenting himself with al-Karak. They allotted to him, together with it, Nablus, Ajlun, al-Salt, and the villages of Jerusalem—though not the city itself, for it had been seized by Anbroz the Frank who had aided al-Kāmil. In 629 AH al-Kāmil married him to his daughter, but a quarrel ensued and he divorced her. In 630 AH he travelled to the Caliph al-Mustansir Billah, bringing gifts; after first refusing him, the Caliph honoured him on account of his superb ode⦗1⦘, which reads:

A lofty palm whose fronds have brushed the sandy dune,
while the wings of darkest night—⦗2⦘ its shadows roaming—circle soon.
Its thunder laughs across those long-deserted plains,
and weeping clouds pour tears upon the ruined lanes;
til, from the ruddy dawn, a rider came in sight—
at whose advance the pitch-black night took flight.
From it:

O Commander of the Faithful, whose high degrees
rise, upon the shoulders of Gemini, with ease!
Can it befit the code of glory and its creed—
you, to whom all noble paths are wont to lead—
that I should brave a barren waste⦗3⦘, a desolate, trackless land,
its routes dust-choked, its plains a thirsting strand?