ʿAbd al-Aḥad (1) ibn ʿAbd al-Ghālib al-Hamadhānī, an Egyptian by residence and afterward a Damascene, was the leading Qurʾān-reciter of Damascus. Thousands completed a full khatm under his guidance. He had studied with al-Shāṭibī and produced a commentary on the latter’s celebrated poem, as well as Sharḥ al-Mufaṣṣal, several Qurʾānic exegeses, many other works, and odes in praise of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ. He held a teaching circle in the Umayyad Mosque of Damascus, was appointed to the chair of Qurʾān instruction at the shrine of Umm al-Ṣāliḥ—where he also lived (2)—and there he died on the night of Sunday, the twelfth of Jumādā al-Ākhirah. He was buried on Mount Qāsiyūn. Qāḍī Ibn Khallikān (3) records that he was born in 558 AH and cites the following verses of his poetry:

[in the sarīʿ metre]
“They said, ‘Tomorrow we shall reach the dwellings of the beloved,
and the caravan will halt in their meadow.
All who obey their summons
will rejoice at meeting them.’
I said, ‘But I have a sin—what remedy is there?
With what face shall I greet them?’
They said, ‘Is not forgiveness their custom—
all the more for those who hope in them?’

Lady Rabīʿah Khātūn (4)—benefactress of the Ṣāḥibah foundation on Mount Qāsiyūn—was Rabīʿah Khātūn bint Ayyūb, sister of Sultan Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. Her brother first married her to Emir Saʿd al-Dīn Masʿūd ibn Muʿīn al-Dīn, and the emir in turn married his sister ʿIṣmat al-Dīn Khātūn, who had been the wife of King Nūr al-Dīn and the founder of the inner Khātūniyyah (5) and the outer khānqāh (6). After Emir Saʿd al-Dīn died, she was wed to King Muẓaffar al-Dīn (7), ruler of Irbil, with whom she remained in Irbil for more than forty years until his death. She then came to Damascus, residing in the Dār al-ʿAqīqī (8) until she died this year, having passed the age of eighty.