—and indeed the sultan did well in putting him to death, for Allah has spared the Muslims his evil—may Allah disfigure him. What a tyrant and brute he was!
In the same year:
The office of Chief Qadi of Baghdad was taken up by al-Akmal Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Zaynabī, and he was robed in investiture after the death of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Dāmghānī. His biography will appear later (1).
[In this year as well: the grave of the Friend of Allah, Abraham, together with the graves of Isaac and Jacob (peace be upon them), was uncovered, and people witnessed it with their own eyes] (2). Their bodies had not decayed, and beside them hung lamps of gold and silver. Ibn al-Khāzin records this in his History, and I suspect he took it from al-Muntazam (3) of Ibn al-Jawzī—Allah knows best what is correct.
[Among the notable deaths in this year was]
Ibn ʿAqīl (4): ʿAlī ibn ʿAfīl ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAqīl, Abū al-Wafāʾ, the leading Hanbalī scholar of Baghdad, author of al-Funūn (5) and other beneficial works.
He was born in 431 AH, studied the Qurʾānic readings (6) with Ibn Shayṭā, heard a vast amount of ḥadith, and pursued jurisprudence under Qāḍī Abū Yaʿlā ibn al-Farrāʾ. He read literature with Ibn Burhān (7), the law of inheritance with ʿAbd al-Malik al-Hamadhānī, preaching with Abū Ṭāhir ibn al-ʿAllāf—himself a disciple of Ibn Sammāʿūn—and the principles of jurisprudence with Abū al-Walīd the Muʿtazilite. He would meet with scholars of every school, and though some of his companions reproached him for that, he paid them no mind. Because of this he outshone his peers and surpassed the men of his time in many disciplines, all while maintaining uprightness, piety, noble character, and tireless industry. He preached on occasion, but when turmoil erupted he abandoned the pulpit. [Allah preserved for him] (8) all his faculties until the very moment of his death.
(1) His biography will appear under the events of the year 543 in this volume.
(2) The wording differs in the printed edition.
(3) I did not find it in the printed editions of al-Muntazam or in Tarikh al-Islam (vol. 11, p. 153). It is attributed to Hamza ibn Asad al-Tamimi in his history, as reported by Ibn al-Athir, and also appears in Kamil Ibn al-Athir, as al-Dhahabi states.
(4) His biography is found in: Tabaqat Ibn Abi Ya‘la (vol. 2, p. 259); al-Muntazam (vol. 9, p. 212); Ibn al-Athir (vol. 8, p. 291); Mirat al-Zaman (vol. 8, p. 83); al-Ibar (vol. 4, p. 29); Mirat al-Jinan (vol. 3, p. 204); al-Minhaj al-Ahmadi (vol. 2, p. 252); and Dhail Ibn Rajab (vol. 1, pp. 142–163).
(5) Al-Dhahabi remarks: “He authored Kitab al-Funun, the largest work of its kind, known to me in no other. One who examined one of its volumes beyond the four hundreds told me that it contains noble studies, disputations, chronicles, anecdotes, and whatever else occurred to him” (Tarikh al-Islam, vol. 11, p. 204). A single volume was printed in Beirut by Dar al-Mashriq in 1969 in a poorly edited edition. During a trip to Tunis, I saw a manuscript volume preserved at al-Zaytuna, its first leaf perforated; I believe it is part of this work (Bashar).
(6) Manuscripts B and T read “he recited the Qur’an”; manuscript A reads “he recited the Qur’an and studied under Ibn Shaytan.” This is a scribal error. The report appears in al-Muntazam.
(7) He is Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Wahid ibn Ali ibn Burhan al-Ukbari, a distinguished scholar, master of Arabic and its disciplines. Ibn Makula remarked, “With his death, the science of Arabic and genealogy was lost; I have found no one like him.” He died in 456 AH. The author provides a brief biography based on Ibn al-Jawzi, who, due to doctrinal differences, minimized his merits and spoke ill of him. May God grant us well-being. (Bashar)
(8) In manuscripts A and B the reading is “wa-matta’.”