He resembled, in his outward form (1), the River Tura (2)… and, in (3) his character, the River Barada (4).
Abu Yaʿqub Yusuf ibn Ismaʿil (5) ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn ʿAbd al-Salam al-Lamghani (6).
One of the leading Ḥanafīs of Baghdad, he studied hadith and lectured in the Sultan Mosque. In doctrinal matters he inclined to the Muʿtazilī school, yet in the practical branches of law he was outstanding. He trained under his father and his uncle, mastered the discipline of juristic dispute and the art of debate, and lived to nearly ninety years. May Allah have mercy on him.
Abu ʿAbd Allah (7) Muhammad ibn [Muhammad ibn] al-Husayn (8), known as Ibn al-Khurasani, the hadith scholar and copyist.
He transcribed a large corpus of hadith, compiled sermons for himself and for others, and his elegant hand was widely celebrated. [May Allah have mercy on him.]
Abu al-Mawahib Maʿtuq ibn Maniʿ (9) ibn Mawahib al-Khatib al-Baghdadi.
He studied grammar and lexicography with Ibn al-Khashshab, compiled a collection of sermons from which he used to preach, and was a virtuous shaykh and man of letters who left a dīwān of poetry. Of it are the following lines,
[from the wāfir metre]
Never seek friendship from a foe
who wars against himself both secretly and openly.
If his professed affection could bring advantage,
the profit would pass from him—to him—alone.
Ibn Kharuf (10), the “Commentator on Sībawayh,” ʿAlī ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf (11), Abū al-Hasan Ibn Kharuf, the Andalusian grammarian.
(1) In edition A: “akhlaqih” (his character), which does not restore the metrical rhythm.
(2) “Tawra” is a branch of the Barada River that runs through Damascus from west to east.
(3) In edition T: “arāda wa-fī”; in A: “zād fī akhlāqih bardan.” Neither variant restores the meter.
(4) In al-Shudharāt: “wa-fī alfāzih barda.”
(5) Biography of al-Lamghānī in al-Takmila fī Wafiyāt al-Naqqālā’ (vol. 2, p. 179) and al-Jawāhir al-Mudiyya (vol. 3, p. 620).
(6) Al-Mundhirī states that al-Lamghānī denotes an affiliation to Lamghān (lām with fatḥa, mīm with sukūn, ghayn with fatḥa), one of the mountains of Ghazni.
(7) Biography of Ibn al-Khurāsānī in al-Takmila fī Wafiyāt al-Naqqālā’ (vol. 2, p. 182) and al-Wāfī bi’l-Wafayāt (vol. 1, p. 945).
(8) In edition T: “al-Ḥasan,” a scribal corruption.
(9) Biography of Mu‘tūq in al-Takmila fī Wafiyāt al-Naqqālā’ (vol. 2, p. 185) and Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 13, pp. 149–150).
(10) Biography of Ibn Khurūf in Mu‘jam al-Udabā’ (vol. 15, p. 75), Wafiyāt al-A‘yān (vol. 3, p. 335), al-Mukhtaṣar li-Abī al-Fidā’ (vol. 3, p. 121), Siyar A‘lām al-Nubalā’ (vol. 22, p. 26), Fawāt al-Wafayāt (vol. 3, p. 84), Mir’āt al-Janān (vol. 4, p. 21), Bughiyat al-Wu‘ātā’ (vol. 2, p. 203), Nafḥ al-Ṭīb (vol. 2, pp. 18–19), and Mu‘jam Kahhāla (vol. 7, p. 221).
(11) Bashshār remarks: “This is how the author names him, a reading adopted by Yāqūt in Mu‘jam al-Udabā’, but it is incorrect. That name belongs to Ibn Khurūf the poet who emigrated from al-Andalus and settled in Aleppo. The individual here is ‘Ali ibn Muḥammad ibn ‘Ali ibn Muḥammad, as recorded by Ibn al-‘Abbār in al-Takmila (vol. 3, p. 226, ed. al-Ḥarās) and by al-Dhahabī in Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 13, p. 220), among others.”