the Alexandrian who later settled in Damascus, shaykh of the Nafīsiyyah Dār al-Ḥadīth, who died in 716 AH: ‘There was no radiance of religion about him; my own avidity pushed me to hear from someone like this. May Allah pardon him—he used to neglect the prayers and was accused of grievous matters.’ (1)

He also said, in the entry for his teacher Shihāb al-Dīn Ghāzī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dimashqī (d. 709 AH): ‘He led a life that was far from praiseworthy—may Allah forgive him—yet a number of the local people wrote from him.’ (2)

Likewise, in the notice on his teacher Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Maqdisī (d. 706 AH), he wrote: ‘A poor, destitute man… I saw them disparaging him… He transmitted to us, on the authority of the Khaṭīb of Mardā, the fascicle titled al-Biṭāqah.’ (3)

About his shaykh Maḥmūd ibn Yaḥyā al-Tamīmī al-Dimashqī (d. 733 AH) he recorded that he was ‘in miserable straits, a coarse fool.’ (4)

Concerning another of his teachers he remarked: ‘One ought not to relate from him; people have told me disasters about him.’ (5)

Regarding yet another he said that he was ‘just one of the common rank of students.’ (6)

And in the entry for his teacher Muḥammad ibn al-Naṣīr, the muʾadhdhin, who died in 715 AH, he noted: ‘An ordinary little shaykh; we heard from him, but he was nothing special.’ (7)

Indeed, his passion for ḥadīth even led him to read before the deaf. In the biographical entry for his deaf teacher Maḥmūd ibn Muḥammad al-Kharāʾiṭī al-Ṣāliḥī (d. 716 AH) he said: ‘I read to him at the very top of my voice, right into his ear.’ (8)