270 AH, nine years before him.
He served as superintendent of the land surveys of Syria on behalf of al-Mutawakkil. Gifted with a clear, flowing style, he was a man of many talents and fully qualified for judicial office. Al-Buhturī composed several panegyrics in his honor (1).
Later he was given charge of the revenues of Egypt together with Damascus. Aḥmad ibn Ṭūlūn then arrested him, imprisoned and tortured him; afterward he had him brought before him and asked, “How are you?” He replied, “May Allah seize you from the security you rely upon, O enemy of Allah!” Ibn Ṭūlūn thereupon ordered his execution, though some said he in fact died in prison.
Ibrāhīm is also the subject of various anecdotes about his infatuation with the songstress ʿUrayyib (2). After she had grown old she visited him one day together with her slave-girls, and that very day he presented her with roughly two thousand dinars.
64 – al-Sukkari, Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh
A foremost authority, an accomplished master, the shaykh of Arabic letters: Abū Saʿīd al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Abī Ṣufrah, a descendant of the emir al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufrah al-Azdī—thus al-Muhallabī, al-Sukkari, the grammarian, and an author of many works.
He transmitted hadith from Yahyā ibn Maʿīn and others, and he studied Arabic with Abū Ḥātim al-Sijistānī, al-Riyāshī, and ʿUmar ibn Shabbah.