He also authored a substantial work on grammar, while his Iʿrāb al-Qurʾān runs to ten volumes; in addition, he produced a Qurʾān commentary. He was an undisputed master of Arabic [and grammar] and of literary studies, and people benefited greatly from his numerous writings.

Ibn Khallikān (1) states: “Al-Ḥawfī is a nisba deriving from a district in Egypt called al-Sharqiyya, whose chief town is Bilbays. The countryside of that district is collectively termed Ḥawf, the singular being Ḥawfī. He came from a village known as Shubrā al-Lanjah (2), one of the dependencies of the aforementioned al-Sharqiyya.”

Then came the year 431 AH.

In that year: the Tigris rose to an extraordinary height, lifting the bridge and everyone upon it, carrying them downstream, and setting them down below the city unharmed.

In that year: a violent clash erupted between the troops and Jalāl al-Dawlah; many on both sides were killed, prolonged troubles ensued, widespread corruption appeared, and the tear became too wide for the mender. The Turks plundered people’s houses, the king no longer commanded their respect or obedience, and prices in Baghdad soared dramatically.

In that year: King Abū Kālījār dispatched his just vizier, Ibn Māfanna, to Basra, and the latter seized it for him.

In that year: King Abū Ṭāhir visited the shrine of ʿAlī and the shrine of al-Ḥusayn, walking barefoot on some of those visits, and no one from Iraq performed the ḥajj that year.

Among the eminent figures who died that year was Ismāʿīl ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allah, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḍarīr al-Ḥīrī (3), a native of Nishapur. He was a distinguished, sharp-witted scholar, reliable and trustworthy. He came to Baghdad on pilgrimage in 423 AH, where al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī read to him the entire Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī in three sittings, transmitting it from him through Abū al-Haytham al-Kushmīhīnī, from al-Farbari, from al-Bukhārī. He died this year (4) at nearly seventy years of age. May Allah have mercy on him.