the Maliki school, such as the mnemonic rajaz poem of Ibn ‘Āshir. He also read literature—at some length—with his maternal uncle’s wife, and in addition to literature he took from her the rudiments of grammar, beginning with al-Ājurrūmiyya and a number of drills. From her, too, he studied in greater depth the genealogies of the Arabs and their famed pre-Islamic battles, the Prophetic biography, the poem on the military expeditions by Aḥmad al-Badawī al-Shinqīṭī—which exceeds five hundred lines, along with its commentary by the author’s nephew, the well-known Ḥammād—and he further learned from her the same author’s versification of ʿAmūd al-nasab, an extensive poem running into the thousands of lines, together with its commentary by the nephew (specifically the portion dealing with the descendants of ʿAdnān).

All of this he acquired while still living in the household of his maternal uncles! From other teachers he went on to study Maliki jurisprudence through Khalīl’s Mukhtaṣar; grammar through Ibn Mālik’s Alfiyya and other works; morphology, legal theory, rhetoric, and portions of hadith and Qur’anic exegesis.

Logic, the rules of dialectic, and the etiquette of scholarly debate he obtained through independent reading.

The Shaykh—may Allah have mercy on him—relates the beginning of his quest: “Once I had memorised the Quran, mastered the ʿUthmānic script, and surpassed my peers in it, my mother and my maternal uncles cared for me with exceptional attention. They resolved to direct me to study the other disciplines, so my mother equipped me with two camels: on one she placed my saddle and books, and on the other my expenses and provisions. A servant accompanied me, driving several cows. She prepared my mount in the finest manner imaginable, and provided clothing of the highest quality—rejoicing over me and encouraging me to seek knowledge. Thus I set out upon the path of study and attainment.”