Abī Rajāʾ, and he said: “Aḥmad ibn Maḥmūd related to us; Ibn al-Muqriʾ related to us; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Rajāʾ in Mecca narrated to us; Ibrāhīm ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Qaysarānī narrated to us; and al-Firyābī narrated, saying:
“I saw in a dream that I had entered a vineyard filled with many kinds of grapes. I ate from every variety except the white grapes—I did not taste a single one of them. I told the vision to Sufyān, and he said: ‘You will attain every branch of knowledge except the laws of inheritance, for they are the jewel of knowledge just as the white grape is the jewel among grapes.’”
And so it was: al-Firyābī never became proficient in the science of inheritance. (1)
Al-Fasawī said, “I heard a trustworthy person say that al-Firyābī declared, ‘I was born in the year 120 AH.’” (2)
Al-Firyābī was one of al-Bukhārī’s most senior teachers.
Al-Bukhārī and Ibn Yūnus both said that he died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal of the year 212 AH. (3)
12 – al-Farrāʾ, Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā ibn Ziyād al-Asadī*
The eminent scholar and prolific author, Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā ibn Ziyād ibn ʿAbd Allāh