al-Ṣila (1), which he composed as a supplement to the Taʾrīkh (2) of Abū al-Walīd ibn al-Faraḍī; a work entitled al-Mustaghīthīn bi-Allah (Those Who Seek the Help of Allah) (3); a single-volume study called Taʿyīn al-Asmāʾ al-Mubhama (4), clarifying ambiguous names in chains of transmission after the manner of al-Khaṭīb; and a list of the transmitters of the Muwaṭṭaʾ (5), arranged alphabetically, who numbered seventy-three men in all. He died (6) in the month of Ramadan at the age of eighty-four—may Allah Most High have mercy on him and be well pleased with him (7).
The eminent scholar Quṭb al-Dīn (8) Abū al-Maʿālī Masʿūd ibn Muḥammad ibn Masʿūd al-Nīsābūrī (9):
He studied jurisprudence under Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā, a disciple of al-Ghazālī. He traveled to Damascus and taught at the Ghazāliyya (10) and Mujāhidiya (11) madrasas, then in Aleppo at the colleges of Nūr al-Dīn and Asad al-Dīn, after which he taught in Hamadhān. He later returned to Damascus, resumed teaching at the Ghazāliyya, and the leadership of the Shāfiʿī school there ultimately devolved upon him. He passed away in that city on the last day of Ramadan—the day of ʿĪd—in the year 578 AH, at the age of ninety-three. Fakhr ibn ʿAsākir (12) and others studied under him, and it was he who led the funeral prayer for the ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir (13). Allah, exalted is He, knows best.
(1) Kitab al-Sīlah was published in Europe and subsequently in Cairo in two volumes (1955 CE).
(2) Tārīkh al-‘Ulamā’ wa’l-Ruwāt li’l-‘Ilm fī’l-Andalus by Ibn al-Farāḍī was printed in Egypt in two volumes (1954 CE).
(3) Ibn Khallikān (II:240) names it Kitāb al-Mustaghithīn bi-Allāh al-Ta‘ālā ‘inda al-Muhimmāt wa’l-Ḥājāt wa’l-Mutadarrinīn ilayhi bi’l-Raghbāt wa’l-Du‘āt wa-mā yassara Allāh al-Karīm lahum min al-Ijabāt wa’l-Karamāt (The Book of Those Seeking God’s Aid in Times of Hardship and Need, Supplicating to Him with Desires and Prayers, and Whatever the Generous Lord Has Facilitated for Them of Responses and Miracles).
(4) In Wafayāt al-A‘yān and al-Dibāj al-Madhhab its title is al-Ghawāmiḍ wa’l-Mubhamāt (The Obscurities and the Ambiguities).
(5) It is mentioned in Wafayāt al-A‘yān (II:240).
(6) Al-Dibāj states that he died in 598 AH, which is a copyist’s error, since he was born in 494 AH and lived 84 years.
(7) The passage enclosed in brackets in edition T actually belongs in edition B. God knows best.
(8) This biography is omitted in manuscripts A and B. It appears in al-Lubāb (III:37), Mir’āt al-Zamān (VIII:372), Wafayāt al-A‘yān (V:196–197), Talkhīṣ Majma‘ al-Adab fī Mu‘jam al-Alqāb (vol. IV, Q4:719–720), Abū al-Fidā’ (III:66), Tārīkh al-Islām (XII:620–621), al-‘Ibar (IV:235–236; Beirut ed., III:76–77), and Mir’āt al-Jinān (III:413).
(9) In most sources he is called al-Turaythīthī, after Turaythīth near Nishapur (see Mu‘jam al-Buldān).
(10) An introduction to this appears in the footnotes on the events of 571 AH above.
(11) Munādamat al-Aṭlāl, pp. 146–148.
(12) He is Abū Manṣūr ‘Abd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Ḥibat Allāh ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Dimashqī, nicknamed Fakhr al-Dīn and better known as the Shāfi‘ī jurist Ibn ‘Asākir; he was the nephew of Ibn ‘Asākir, author of Tārīkh Dimashq. Born in 550 AH, he studied under Shaykh Quṭb al-Dīn Abū al-Ma‘ālī Ma‘sūd al-Nīṣābūrī, accompanied him for some time, and married his daughter. He later taught in Jerusalem for a period, and died in 620 AH. His biography is in Mir’āt al-Zamān (VIII:630), Zhayl al-Rawdhatayn (p. 136), and al-‘Ibar (V:81; Beirut ed. III:181–182).
(13) His biography appears above under the events of 571 AH in this volume.