He passed away in Shawwāl of this year. May Allah have mercy on him.
ʿAbd al-Ghaffār ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (1), Abū Bakr al-Dīnawarī, the Sufyānī jurist. He was the last person in Baghdad to deliver legal rulings according to the school of Sufyān al-Thawrī, doing so in the Manṣūr Mosque, whose supervision and affairs were entrusted to him. He died in Shawwāl of this year and was buried behind the mosque. May Allah have mercy on him.
Al-Ḥākim of Nīshāpūr (2) — Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥamduwayh ibn Naʿīm ibn al-Ḥakam, Abū ʿAbd Allah, al-Ḥākim, al-Ḍabbī, the ḥāfiẓ, better known as Ibn al-Bayyiʿ (3), a native of Nīshāpūr.
He was a scholar of outstanding learning and a master memorizer of hadith. Born in 321 AH, he attended his first hadith sessions in 330 AH. He heard an immense body of narrations and travelled widely in their pursuit. He composed both large and concise works, among them:
• al-Mustadrak ʿalā al-Ṣaḥīḥayn,
• ʿUlūm al-ḥadīth,
• al-Iklīl, and
• Tārīkh Naysābūr.
He transmitted from many teachers; among them were al-Dāraqutnī, Ibn Abī al-Fawāris, and others. Renowned for his knowledge, prodigious memory, trustworthiness, piety, probity, precision, reliability, caution, and scrupulousness, he was an exemplar in these qualities. May Allah have mercy on him.
Yet al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (4) said: “Ibn al-Bayyiʿ leaned toward Shīʿism.” He related to me—Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Armawī—that al-Ḥākim Abū ʿAbd Allah compiled a collection of hadiths which he claimed were authentic according to the criteria of al-Bukhārī and Muslim, and therefore incumbent upon them to include in their Ṣaḥīḥs. Among these were the ḥadīth of the bird (5) and the report, “Whoever considers me his master, ʿAlī is his master.” (6)