—as well as garments, real estate, and equipment. He left behind two sons, each of whom inherited forty thousand dinars, and his eldest had enlisted in the army and served Sultan Muḥammad ibn Tekish (1).

Ibn al-Athīr states in al-Kāmil (2): “In this year Fakhr al-Dīn Abū al-Faḍl (3) Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Khaṭīb al-Rayy, the Shāfiʿī jurist and author of the famous works on jurisprudence, legal theory, and other subjects, passed away. He was the pre-eminent scholar of the world in his time. I have been informed that he was born in 543 AH.”

Among his poetry are the following verses:
[Ṭawīl]
To You, Lord of creation, I turn my face and my aim;
You are the One I call upon in secret and in public. (4)
You are my refuge whenever calamity strikes,
And You are my haven in life and in the grave. (5)

This was transmitted by Ibn al-Saʿī (6) from Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī, from one of Fakhr al-Dīn’s sons, who also recited to us:
[Ṭawīl]
The final doors of felicity for mankind are opened
By remembering the Majesty of the One, the Unique, the True;
The Disposer of every possible being in its entirety,
Its Originator in justice, equity, and truth.
The Majesty of Allah is far too exalted to resemble His creation,
And He has strengthened this religion in West and East.
A God of vast bounty, justice, and loftiness—
He guides and lets stray, He grants happiness and ordains wretchedness.

Among the lines he cites in some of his writings are these (7):
[Ṭawīl]
The furthest reach of human intellects is confinement,
And most of mankind’s striving is but going astray.
Our spirits are estranged within our bodies,
And the sum of our worldly life is pain and affliction.
In all our years of research we have gained nothing
Except to accumulate a “he said” and a “they said.”

He then says (8): “I have examined the paths of kalām and the methods of the philosophers, yet found in them nothing that quenches thirst or heals the sick. I have seen that the nearest path is the way of the Qur’an. Read, in affirmation: ‘The Most Merciful established Himself above the Throne’ (20:5).”