ibn Qumis (1) ibn Mazlal (2) ibn Mallal (3) ibn Badr ibn Ahmad ibn Dihyah (4) ibn Khalifah al-Kalbi (5), the ḥāfiẓ and foremost hadith authority of Egypt; he was the first to occupy the post of shaykh of the Kāmilīyah Dār al-Ḥadith there.

Al-Sibt said: He was like Ibn ʿUnayn in maligning the Muslims and speaking against them, and he would go beyond the mark in his words, so people abandoned transmitting from him and branded him a liar. Sultan al-Kāmil had once shown him favor, but when the latter discovered his true state he took the Dār al-Ḥadith from him and humiliated him. He died in Rabīʿ al-Awwal in Cairo and was buried in the Qarafa cemetery of Egypt.

Shaykh Shihāb al-Dīn Abū Shāmah (6) said: Shaykh al-Sakhāwī composed some fine verses about him.

Judge Ibn Khallikān, after setting out his lineage as above and noting that he had copied it from the man’s own autograph (7), said (8): He further mentioned that his mother was Amat al-Raḥmān, daughter of Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī al-Bassām Mūsā ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Mūsā ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib. For this reason Ibn Dihyah used to write in his own hand, “Holder of two noble lineages: that of Dihyah and that of al-Ḥusayn” (9).

Ibn Khallikān (10) also said: He was one of the leading scholars and most celebrated men of letters, thoroughly versed in the science of hadith and its ancillary disciplines, and well acquainted with grammar, philology, the annals of the Arabs, and their poetry. He studied in the Maghrib, then traveled to Syria and afterwards to Iraq, and he passed through Irbil in 604 AH. There he found its ruler, al-Muʿaẓẓam Muẓaffar al-Dīn (11) ibn Zayn al-Dīn, devoted to celebrating the Prophet’s birthday, so he composed for him the book Al-Tanwīr fī Mawlid al-Sirāj al-Munīr, recited it to him in person, and received a reward of one thousand dinars. He (12) added: We heard it read before King al-Muʿaẓẓam (13) in six sessions in the year 626 AH (14).