of the Companions, which I possess in his own handwriting; he also authored Description of Paradise, [Proofs of Prophethood], a treatise on [Prophetic] medicine, and other useful works.

The ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (1) said: “Abū Nuʿaym used to mix what he had actually heard with what he related by ijāza, making no distinction between the two.” (2)

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Nakhshabī said: “Abū Nuʿaym did not hear the Musnad of al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāma from Abū Bakr ibn Khallād in its entirety, yet he reported all of it.” (3)

Shaykh Abū al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzī observed: “He heard much, authored much, and inclined strongly toward the Ashʿarī school [in creed].”

He died on the eighteenth of Muḥarram this year, at the age of ninety-four, for Ibn Khallikān records that he was born in 336 AH. He also wrote Taʾrīkh Iṣfahān.

In the biographical entry on his father, [Abū Nuʿaym] noted that Mihrān embraced Islam and that their walāʾ was to ʿAbd Allah ibn Muʿāwiya ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Jaʿfar ibn Abī Ṭālib. He further stated that the name Iṣfahān—originally in Persian Sabāhān—means “the gathering place of armies,” and that Alexander founded the city, as al-Samʿānī relates. (4)

al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥusayn (5), Abū ʿAlī al-Burjumī (6). He served as vizier to Sharaf al-Dawlah Abū ʿAlī ibn Bahāʾ al-Dawlah for two years before being removed, yet he retained great prestige while out of office. It was he who built the bīmāristān in Wāsiṭ, furnishing it with beverages, physicians, medicines, and everything else required, and endowing for it an ample income. He died this year, having nearly reached eighty. May Allah have mercy on him.

al-Ḥasan ibn Jaʿfar (7), Abū al-Futūḥ al-ʿAlawī, the emir of Mecca—may Allah Most High ennoble it.