He was a gifted poet, a cultivated man of letters—free-spirited and witty. He also served as deputy head of the Hashimite guild. On one occasion a man named ʿAlī and a woman named ʿĀʾisha came before him to litigate over a camel. He said, “This is a suit in which I shall give no verdict, lest the matter relapse into the first Camel affair.”

Among the choicest of his verse and the most graceful of his words:
In the visage of the lady for whom I burn
Four marvels meet that were never combined in one:
The face—a full moon; the temple—pure perfume (1);
Her breath is wine, and the mouth is cool, like ice.

And of his rakish poetry—when he once entered a bathhouse and his sandals were stolen, so that he had to return home barefoot (2)—he said:
To you I complain of the bath of Ibn Mūsā;
Though its fragrance and heat exceed every wish,
The thieves are so many around it that
Whoever circles within comes out barefoot and bare.
I did not lose a garment there, but
I went in a Muḥammad (3)
And came out a Bishr (4).

Yūsuf ibn ʿUmar ibn Masrūr (5), Abū al-Fatḥ, al-Qawwās.
He received ḥadīth from al-Baghawī, Ibn Abī Dāwūd, Ibn Ṣāʿid, and others. Al-Khallāl, al-ʿUshārī (6), al-Tanūkhī (7), and many more transmitted from him. He was reliable and distinguished, counted among the abdāl.
Al-Dāraquṭnī said, “We used to seek blessing through him while he was still a boy.” He died with three days remaining of Rabīʿ al-Ākhir at the age of eighty-five and was buried at Bāb Ḥarb—may Allah have mercy on him.

Yūsuf ibn Abī Saʿīd (8) al-Sīrāfī, Abū Muḥammad, the grammarian, son of the grammarian. He is the one who completed his father’s commentary on Sibawayh’s Book (9). He was known for both learning and piety; his death occurred in