at the turn of the second century Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, and at the turn of the third He has sent you. Then he began to recite:

Two men have passed—may blessing rest upon them:
ʿUmar the Caliph, then honor’s sworn ally;
The brilliant (1) Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad,
heir to Prophethood and kinsman of Muḥammad.
Rejoice, Abū al-ʿAbbās, for you are the third after them—
may refreshing rain grace Aḥmad’s resting place.

At this Abū al-ʿAbbās cried out, wept, and said, “He has just announced my own death to me.”

Ḥassān the jurist said, “The judge Abū al-ʿAbbās died that very year.”

I add: At the turn of the fourth century the renewer was Shaykh Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfarāʾīnī; at the turn of the fifth, Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī; at the turn of the sixth, the ḥadith master ʿAbd al-Ghanī; and at the turn of the seventh, our shaykh Abū al-Fatḥ Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd.

If, however, the expression “one who renews” is taken to encompass a group—as is the stronger view—then at the head of the first century we would list the reigning caliph ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, Abū Qilābah, and others.

At the head of the second century, alongside al-Shāfiʿī, would be Yazīd ibn Hārūn, Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī, Ashhab the jurist, and several others.

At the head of the third, together with Ibn Surayj, would be Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī, al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān, and others.

Among those who died in the year six (306 AH) were the leading traditionist of Baghdad, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Ṣūfī, and the spiritual master Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Jallāʾ, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā.