Ibn Fāris (1)
He is Aḥmad ibn Fāris ibn Zakariyyā ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabīb, the renowned linguist from Rayy and author of al-Mujmal in lexicography. He lived in Hamadhān, composed handsome epistles, and al-Badīʿ, the author of the Maqāmāt, studied under him.
Among his graceful poetry are these lines:
A slender maid with braided tresses passed us by—
A Turkic beauty of pure Turkic line;
She cast a languid, captivating glance,
Feebler than a grammarian’s proof.
He also said—may Allah have mercy on him:
When you have a need you would send on,
And you are passionately attached to it,
Send a wise man and give him no instructions—
That wise man is the dirham.
Ibn Khallikān said: He died in the year 390 AH, though it is also reported that he died in 395 AH (2); the first view is the better known (3).
[Then came the year 396 AH]
Ibn al-Jawzī relates: On the Friday night marking the first of Shaʿbān, a star rose that resembled Venus in both size and brightness, appearing to the left of the qiblah, undulating, and casting a ray upon the earth like the moon’s beam. It remained until the middle of Dhū al-Qaʿdah, then disappeared.
In this year Abū Muḥammad ibn al-Akfanī (4) was appointed judge over all of Baghdad.
That same year the caliph al-Qādir received the amir Qirwāsh ibn Abī Ḥassān, granting him alone the governorship of Kūfah (5)(6) and bestowing on him the title Muʿtamid al-Dawlah.
During it al-Sharīf al-Raḍī was invested with the naqābah of the Prophet’s descendants in Baghdad, received the honorific al-Raḍī Dhū al-Ḥasbayn (7), and his brother al-Murtaḍā was granted the title Dhū al-Majdayn.