He was also a man of letters, a physician, a poet, and an eloquent speaker, enjoying unrivalled mastery of medicine and logic. He belonged to a family of viziers and statesmen, endowed with prestige, wealth, and great fortune. He was on friendly terms with Shaykh Abū ʿAmr ibn ʿAbd al-Barr al-Namarī, yet an opponent of Shaykh Abū al-Walīd Sulaymān ibn Khalaf al-Bājī; extensive debates took place between them, the details of which would require a lengthy account.
Abū Muḥammad Ibn Ḥazm was frequently scathing toward scholars who, in word or writing, contravened authentic hadiths. This provoked resentment in the hearts of his contemporaries, who eventually turned their rulers against him and he was expelled from his homeland. He died in one of his villages on the second of Shaʿbān of this year, having lived beyond seventy (1).
What is truly astonishing is that, in questions of subsidiary jurisprudence, he was a Ẓāhirī [unsettled], rejecting every form of qiyās—whether obvious or otherwise—[and this, the scholars say, lowered his standing and led to grave error in his judgments and conduct]. For all that, he was among the most given to figurative interpretation in matters of creed [and in the verses and hadiths that speak of the divine attributes], because he had earlier steeped himself in logic, which he learned from Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Madhḥijī al-Kattānī al-Qurṭubī, as related by Ibn Mākūlā and Ibn Khallikān. [Thus, they add, his stance on the divine attributes became unsound.] May Allah have mercy on him.
ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn ʿAlī ibn Barhān [ibn] ʿAlī ibn Hāniʾ, Abū al-Qāsim the grammarian (2), was a man of exceedingly harsh temperament. He never wore trousers, never covered his head, and would accept no stipend from anyone. It was said of him that he kissed handsome beardless youths, though without illicit intent.
Ibn ʿAqīl observed: he inclined toward the view of the Murjiʾah among the Muʿtazila, denied the unbelievers’ eternal stay [in the Fire], and maintained that perpetual punishment of one from whom vindictive satisfaction cannot be sought is incompatible with the mercy Allah has ascribed to Himself. He would, therefore, interpret the divine words, “abiding therein forever” (Q 4:169) as meaning “for an age among the ages.”
Ibn al-Jawzī (3) remarked: Ibn Barhān disparaged the adherents of Aḥmad, and his creed diverged from that of the Muslims; for by denying the eternal punishment of the unbelievers he opposed the consensus. How, then, can his words be accepted? He died this year, having passed the age of eighty.
[Then came the year 457 AH]
In it: a group [from Iraq] set out for the ḥajj under armed escort, but could not continue the journey; they therefore diverted to Kūfa and returned home.