He studied under Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl and produced a commentary on Ibn al-Ḥaddād’s al-Furūʿ (Branches of Jurisprudence). His own teacher had already commented on that work before him, and after him the qāḍī Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Ṭabarī (1) did the same. Abū ʿAlī al-Sinjī also wrote an extensive commentary on Ibn al-Qāṣṣ’s al-Talkhīs (The Synopsis), and he authored al-Majmūʿ (The Compendium), a book from which al-Ghazālī drew in al-Wasīṭ (The Intermediate). Ibn Khallikān (2) remarked, “He was the first to combine the legal methodologies of Iraq and Khurāsān.” He died in the year thirty-something and four hundred AH; may Allah Most High have mercy on him (3).

[Then came the year 440 AH]
In Jumādā I of that year, the ruler Abū Kālījār, master of Baghdad, fell ill while in the open country. He was cupped three times in a single day, was carried in a litter, and died on the night of Thursday. The slave-boys plundered the treasuries, and the slave-girls set fire to the tents—except for the tent in which he lay and the kharkāh (4) that sheltered him. After him his son Abū Naṣr assumed power, and they bestowed on him the title al-Malik al-Raḥīm (5). On a day of great ceremony he entered the caliphal palace; the caliph invested him with seven robes of honor, girded him with a sword and a collar, set upon his head the crown and the black Ruṣāfī turban, admonished him, and then withdrew to his residence, while the people went to offer their congratulations.

In this year:
• A wall was built around Shiraz. Its circumference measured 12,000 cubits, its height eight cubits, its thickness six cubits, and it contained eleven gates (6).

• Ibrāhīm Yinal raided Byzantine territory, capturing 100,000 prisoners and 4,000 coats of mail—some said 19,000. Nothing now stood between him and Constantinople but a march of fifteen days, and the spoils were transported on 10,000 wagons.

• The name of Dakhīrat al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad, son of the caliph al-Qāʾim bi-Amr Allah, was mentioned in the Friday sermons from the pulpits as heir-apparent after his father, and he was greeted accordingly.