al-Nasa’i. He used to say, “I am content to take him as my proof before God.” (1)

Ibn Yūnus said: “Ibn al-Ḥaddād was skilled in grammar and in the laws of inheritance; he moved in the circles of the rulers; he had memorised fiqh according to the Shāfiʿī school; he prayed often and was devoted to worship; and he held the post of judge in Egypt as the deputy of Ibn Harwān al-Ramli.” (2)

Al-Musabbiḥī said: “He was a jurist-scholar, constant in prayer and fasting; he would fast one day and break his fast the next, and he completed a full recitation of the Quran every day and night while standing in prayer.

“He died, the funeral prayer over him being performed on a Wednesday. He was buried at the foot of al-Muqaṭṭam beside his mother’s grave. The ruler Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Ikhshīd, Abū al-Misk Kāfūr, and the dignitaries attended his funeral. (3) He was without peer in his memorisation of the Quran and the Arabic language, and in the breadth of his legal knowledge.

“For many years he conducted a teaching circle to which Muslims flocked. He was seriousness itself—may God have mercy on him—and Egypt left none like him after his passing.

“He was also versed in hadith, in the nomenclature and biographies of transmitters, and in history.”

Ibn Zulāq writes in Judges of Egypt: “In the year twenty-four, the Ikhshīd placed the judiciary of Egypt in the hands of Ibn al-Ḥaddād. He also supervised the court of grievances and signed its decrees, judging on behalf of al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Zurʿah al-Dimashqī. He sat to judge both in the congregational mosque and in his own home. A jurist devoted to worship, he excelled in many disciplines: the sciences of the Quran, the doctrine of al-Shāfiʿī, hadith, the names and kunyahs, grammar and language, the disagreements of the scholars, the chronicles of peoples, the exploits of the Jāhiliyyah, genealogy, and poetry; he had memorised a large corpus of verse, composed poetry with skill, and he completed a full recitation every day—