it was first established; thereafter he fell ill (1) for two months and appointed Ibn al-Sāʿī to oversee his estate. He died on Tuesday, the fifth of Shaʿbān of this same year, at the age of seventy-five. The funeral prayer was held for him in the Niẓāmiyyah madrasa, and a great multitude accompanied his cortege. Voices around his bier cried out, “This is the ḥadīth master of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—who used to banish falsehood (2) from his reports.”
He left no heir; all he possessed was twenty dinars and the clothes on his back, and he instructed that these be given in charity. He also endowed two presses of books to the Niẓāmiyyah worth a thousand dinars, a gift the Caliph al-Mustaʿṣim ratified. People praised him highly and composed many elegies for him (3), all of which Ibn al-Sāʿī recorded at the end of his biography.

The ḥāfiẓ Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn al-Maqdisī (4)—author of al-Aḥkām—Muḥammad (5) ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Maqdisī,
heard a vast number of hadiths, wrote extensively, travelled far and wide, gathered, compiled, and produced many fine and useful books. Among them are al-Aḥkām, which he never completed, and al-Mukhtārah, rich in valuable hadith learning and superior to al-Ḥākim’s al-Mustadrak had it been finished. He also authored Faḍāʾil al-Aʿmāl and other excellent works that bear witness to his memorization, erudition, and broad mastery of the sciences (6) of ḥadīth, both in text and isnād.

He—may Allah have mercy on him—was the very image of worship, asceticism, scrupulous piety, and goodness. He endowed a great number of priceless books to the library (7) of the Ḍiyāʾiyyah madrasa, which he had set aside for his fellow ḥadīth scholars (8) and jurists; many additional endowments (9) were later added to it.

Shaykh ʿAlam al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan (10) al-Sakhāwī (11), ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn