knowledge to various lands, studying under Asʿad al-Mīhanī (1), Abū ʿAlī al-Fāriqī (2), and a number of others. He was appointed judge of Sinjar and Ḥarrān, and in the time of Nūr al-Dīn he undertook the teaching of the Ghazāliyya madrasa (3). He then moved to Aleppo, where Nūr al-Dīn built a school for him both in Aleppo and in Ḥimṣ (4). Later he came to Damascus during the reign of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, who made him its chief judge in 573 AH, a position he retained until he died this very year.
He compiled a small treatise entitled “A Section on the Blind Man’s Judging,” in which he deemed such adjudication permissible. This runs contrary to the Shāfiʿī school, yet the author of al-Bayān recorded it as one opinion held by certain scholars, saying (5): “I have not seen it mentioned elsewhere” (6).
He wrote many other works, including Ṣafwat al-Madhhab fī Nihāyat al-Maṭlab in seven volumes; al-Intiṣār (7) in four; al-Khilāf in four; al-Dhariʿa fī Maʿrifat al-Sharīʿa; al-Murshid and other titles; a book he called Maʾākhidh al-Naẓar; and a Mukhtaṣar (8) on the laws of inheritance, along with further writings.
Ibn ʿAsākir mentions him in his History, as does al-ʿImād, who praised him, and so too did al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil. Al-ʿImād also cited many of his poems (9). Among the verses transmitted by Ibn Khallikān is his statement (10):
—from the ṭawīl metre—
“I still hope to go on living, yet every single hour
The dead pass me by, their biers being shaken.
And I (11) am but one of them; the only difference is
A handful of nights that remain for me to live.”
The jurist-prince Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn ʿĪsā (12) al-Hakkārī (13):
= Al-Ḥaditha lies to its east, as stated in Mu‘jam al-Buldan. I note that Mosul today is the capital of the Ninawa Governorate in northwestern Iraq on the Syrian border.
(1) His biography appears earlier in the account of the year 523 AH in this volume.
(2) His biography appears earlier in the account of the year 528 AH in this volume.
(3) The hadith concerning him appears earlier in the footnotes for the year 571 AH in this volume.
(4) In the printed edition (ṭ): “Then Nūr al-Dīn built a madrasah for him in Aleppo and another in Homs.”
(5) Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 3, p. 54.
(6) Following this, in the printed edition: “But the love of something blinds and deafens.” This line is not found in Wafayāt al-A‘yān.
(7) In the printed edition: al-intisāf (a scribal error).
(8) From the printed edition alone.
(9) In the printed edition: “and Ibn Khallikān among them.”
(10) The two verses are in Wafayāt al-A‘yān, vol. 3, p. 55.
(11) In the printed edition: wa-hal.
(12) His biography is recorded in Ibn al-Athīr (vol. 9, p. 205), al-Rawdatayn (vol. 2, p. 150), Wafayāt al-A‘yān (vol. 3, pp. 497–498), Abū al-Fidāʾ (vol. 3, p. 77) and Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 12, pp. 805–806). In Wafayāt al-A‘yān his name is given as Abū Muḥammad Isā ibn Muḥammad ibn Isā ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Qāsim ibn Isā ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib; he is said to be al-Hakkārī, nicknamed Diyāʾ al-Dīn.
(13) Manuscripts A and B read “Ibn al-Hakkārī.” The nisba al-Hakkārī refers to al-Hakkāriyyah, a town, district and villages north of Mosul in the Jazīrat ibn ʿUmar region, inhabited by Kurds known as Hakkāriyyah (Mu‘jam al-Buldan).