from his father a number of rejected reports, and he also narrated from al-Junayd and Ibn Masrūq. (1)

Ibn al-Jawzī said: “He was witty and urbane, yet people accused him of inventing ḥadith.” (2)

Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad ibn Ayyūb (3), Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī al-Lakhmī—the great ḥāfiẓ, author of al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ, al-Muʿjam al-Ṣaghīr, Kitāb al-Sunnah, Musnad al-Shāmiyyīn, and other useful compilations—lived one hundred years. He died this year in Isfahan and was buried at its gate beside the grave of Ḥumamah al-Dawsī, the Companion (may Allah be pleased with him). (4) So stated Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī in al-Muntaẓam. (5)

Ibn Khallikān said: “He received ḥadith from one thousand teachers. His death occurred on Saturday, with two nights remaining of Dhū al-Qaʿdah in this year; some, however, say it was in Shawwāl.”

Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Fatḥ (6)—also said to be Ibn Abī al-Fatḥ—the Khāqān, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Najjād, imam of the Great Mosque of Damascus: Ibn ʿAsākir relates that he was a devout worshipper. A group once came to visit him and heard him groaning from pain; they reproached him for that. [7] When he came out to them he said, “Āh is one of Allah’s Names by which the afflicted find relief.” Ibn ʿAsākir adds: “This only enhanced his standing in their eyes, and they revered him all the more.” (8)

I say: What he asserted cannot be accepted from him without evidence; it requires an authentic report from the infallible Messenger, for the Names of Allah, Exalted is He, are—according to the sound position—determined solely by revelation. Allah knows best what is correct.