as al-Ḥakkāk (1) the Meccan. He travelled in search of ḥadīth to Syria, Iraq, Isfahan, and other regions, and heard a vast amount [and put forth separate compilations]. He was a ḥāfiẓ, precise, trustworthy, exact, truthful, [cultivated], and righteous. He corresponded with the ruler of Mecca and was a man of dignity and noble bearing. He was close to eighty years of age. May Allah have mercy on him.
Niẓām al-Mulk the vizier (2) is al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Isḥāq ibn al-ʿAbbās, Abū ʿAlī the vizier. He served as minister to King Alp Arslan and then to his son Malikshāh for thirty years. He was among the best of viziers. Born in Ṭūs in 408 AH, his father had served the retinue of Maḥmūd ibn Subuktikīn [and was one of the dahāqin — provincial landowners] (3).
The son devoted himself early: he memorised the Qur’an [when he was eleven], pursued the science of the readings, studied jurisprudence according to the Shāfiʿī school, and applied himself to ḥadīth, language, and grammar. Ambitious [he acquired a good share of all that], he ascended the ranks until he was appointed vizier [to Sultan Alp Arslan ibn Dāwūd ibn Mīkāʾīl ibn Saljūq, and after him to Malikshāh for twenty-nine years, without a single mishap] (4).
He built the Niẓāmiyyah madrasahs (5) in Baghdad, Nīshāpūr, and elsewhere, and his audience chamber was always filled with jurists and scholars, with whom he spent most of his time. Someone remarked to him, “They have kept you from many affairs of state.” He replied, “These are the adornment of this world and the Hereafter; even if I seated them upon my head I would not think it too much.” When Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī and Abū al-Maʿālī al-Jūwaynī entered, he would rise for them and seat them in the place of honour; but when Abū ʿAlī al-Fāramadhī (6) came in, he would stand, seat him in his own place, and sit before him. Reproached for this, he said, “When the first two enter they keep saying, ‘You this, you that’ [lavishing praise on me and attributing to me what I do not possess, thus feeding what lies latent in every soul]. But when Abū ʿAlī al-Fāramadhī comes in, he reminds me of my faults and injustices, so I am humbled and give up much of what I am doing. He was