Among the notable personages who passed away this year was Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Salāmah (1) ibn Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Malik—Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭaḥāwī, so called after Ṭahā, a village in Upper Egypt (2). A Ḥanafī jurist, he authored many profitable works and abundant scholarly benefits (3). He ranked among the most reliable authorities and foremost ḥuffāẓ, the expert masters of hadith. (Ṭahā is one of the towns of Egypt.) He was the nephew of al-Muzanī (4), may Allah have mercy on them both.

Al-Ṭaḥāwī died on the first day of Dhū al-Qaʿdah of this year at the age of eighty-two. Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī, however, records that he was born in 229 AH (5); if so, he surpassed ninety years of age—Allah knows best.

Ibn Khallikān relates in al-Wafayāt that the reason he left his uncle al-Muzanī’s school and adopted the school of Abū Ḥanīfah was that his uncle once said to him, “By Allah, nothing will ever come of you!” Offended, he turned to Abū Jaʿfar ibn Abī ʿImrān al-Ḥanafī, applied himself, and soon outstripped the scholars of his era, producing numerous books, including: Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, Ikhtilāf al-ʿUlamāʾ, Maʿānī al-Āthār, and al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr. He also wrote an authoritative treatise on legal contracts and excelled in that field (6).

He served as scribe for the judge Abū ʿUbayd Allah Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdah (7), and the judge Abū ʿUbayd ibn Ḥarbawayh (8) declared him upright. He used to say, “May Allah have mercy on al-Muzanī! If he were alive, he would expiate the oath he swore.”

Al-Ṭaḥāwī’s death occurred at the beginning of Dhū al-Qaʿdah; he was buried in al-Qarāfah, where his grave remains well known. May Allah Most High have mercy on him.

Ibn ʿAsākir also penned his biography, noting that he arrived in Damascus in 268 AH and studied jurisprudence with its judge Abū Khāzim.