He journeyed far and wide, heard an immense amount of ḥadīth, and compiled a Musnad running to 1,300 fascicles(1), complete with notes on hidden defects (ʿilal) and variant chains of transmission. He also authored al-Maghāzī wa-al-Qabāʾil (The Military Expeditions and the Tribes) and produced an extraction of reports corroborating the two Ṣaḥīḥs and other collections. Ibn al-Jawzī said: “Within his household and lineage there were nineteen(2) ḥadīth scholars.” He died in Rajab of this year—may Allah have mercy on him.(3)

• The ḥāfiẓ Abū Aḥmad ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAdī(4) ibn ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Aḥmad al-Jurjānī, the great ḥāfiẓ,(5) a useful Imām, a celebrated authority, constantly on the move, collecting and transmitting wherever he went. He authored al-Kāmil fī al-Jarḥ wa-al-Taʿdīl, a book to which nothing earlier is comparable and to which nothing later can be likened. Ḥamzah relates from al-Dāraquṭnī: “It is sufficient; nothing needs to be added to it.”(6) Ibn ʿAdī was born in 277 AH, the year Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī died, and he himself passed away in Jumādā al-Ākhirah of this year.(7)

• al-Muʿizz the Fatimid(8) – builder of al-Qāhirah al-Muʿizziyyah – Maʿadd ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd(9) Allāh, Abū Tamīm, who claimed descent from the Fāṭimah line, ruled the Egyptian domains. He was the first of them, that is, of the Fatimids, to seize control of the country; his dominion had been in the lands of