• Also among the prominent personalities who died this year was ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad (1) ibn ʿAlī, Imād al-Dīn (2), Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabarī, better known as Ilkiyā al-Harrāsī. He was one of the foremost Shāfiʿī jurists, born in 450 AH. He studied under Imām al-Ḥaramayn (3), and he and al-Ghazālī were the leading pupils of that master; each of them was later appointed to the chair of instruction at the Niẓāmiyya in Baghdad.

[Abū al-Ḥasan was eloquent, endowed with a powerful voice, and handsome in appearance.] (4) He would repeat his lesson (5) seven times on every one of the seventy steps of the Niẓāmiyya in Nīshāpūr.

He heard a vast number of ḥadīths, engaged in disputation, issued fatwas, and taught, ranking among the great scholars (6) and leading jurists of his age. He composed a single-volume work refuting the positions on which Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal stood alone, in addition to other writings.

At one time he was accused of siding with the Bāṭiniyya, whereupon his teaching post was taken from him; but a group of scholars—among them Ibn ʿAqīl—testified to his innocence, and the chair was restored.

He died (7) at the opening of Muḥarram this year, aged fifty-four, and was buried beside Shaykh Abū Isḥāq al-Shīrāzī—may Allah have mercy on them both.

Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān (8) records that he had memorized ḥadīth and debated on its basis. He is the author of the line:

When the knights of ḥadīth charge onto the battlefield,
The heads of analogical reasoning are carried off by the wind.

Al-Silafī (9) relates that he was asked for a ruling concerning the scribes of ḥadīth: do they fall under the bequest made to jurists? He replied, “Yes, on account of the Messenger’s (ﷺ) saying:

‘Whoever preserves for my ummah forty ḥadīths, Allah will raise him up as a learned jurist.’” (10)