Abu al-Qasim al-Qushayri (1)—author of al-Risala—was ʿAbd al-Karim ibn Hawazin ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (2) ibn Talhah. His mother came from the Banu Sulaym. His father died while he was still a child, so he applied himself to literature and Arabic. He kept the company of the shaykh Abu ʿAli al-Daqqaq, learned jurisprudence from Abu Bakr ibn Muhammad al-Tusi, and studied kalam with Abu Bakr ibn Furak. A prolific writer, he produced, among other works, al-Tafsir al-Kabir (The Great Commentary) and al-Risala, in which he recorded the lives of many shaykhs and righteous men. He performed the Hajj in the company of Imam al-Haramayn and the hadith master Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi, and he used to preach to the people. He died in Nishapur this year at the age of seventy and was buried beside his shaykh Abu ʿAli al-Daqqaq. Out of reverence for him, no one from his household entered the room containing his books for several years. He owned a mare that had been presented to him; when he died, the animal refused its fodder and soon thereafter died as well. Ibn al-Jawzi relates this.

The qadi Ibn Khallikan praised him at length in his Wafayat and quoted some of his choice verses, among them:

May God water the hour when I could sit alone before your face,
While passion’s smile in the garden of intimacy was bright.
We lived a season (3) with eyes at ease,
Then one morning I awoke and the eyelids were pouring tears.

He also said—may Allah Most High have mercy on him:

Had you been with us for but an hour of what lies between us,
And witnessed the moment of our parting and farewell (4),
You would have known that tears can speak,
And learned that speech itself may turn to tears.

And he said as well:

Whoever, through the length of love, has tasted forgetfulness—
For me, with Layla therein (5), no such taste exists.
The greatest (6) thing I ever won of her union
Was hopes that proved as fleeting as a lightning flash.