Ibn Bint al-Aʿazz (1); and earlier still it had been held by the judge Badr al-Dīn al-Sanjārī (2). After all that the vizierate devolved upon Shaykh al-Asʿad al-Muslamānī. Al-Faʾizī used to correspond with al-Muʿizz, signing himself “the slave,” but when al-Muʿizz was killed al-Asʿad was so humiliated that his life became sheer misery. The emir Sayf al-Dīn Quṭuz (3) forced him to give a written bond for one hundred thousand dinars. Bahāʾ al-Dīn Zuhayr ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī lampooned him, saying (4):
God curse Ṣāʿid—
and his father—ever higher;
and curse his sons coming back down,
one by one.
In the end he too was slain and buried in al-Qarāfah. The judge Nāṣir al-Dīn Ibn al-Munīr (5) elegized him and composed for him several polished, eloquent, and graceful poems (6).
Ibn Abī Ḥadīd (7), the Iraqi poet (8)—ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn Dāwud Hibat Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn, Abū Ḥāmid Ibn Abī Ḥadīd ʿIzz al-Dīn al-Madāʾinī—was a consummate writer and poet, an extreme Shiʿi. He authored the Commentary on Nahj al-Balāghah in twenty (9) volumes. Born in al-Madāʾin in 586 AH, he later moved to Baghdad and became one of the foremost secretaries and poets of the caliphal chancery. He enjoyed particular favor with the vizier Ibn al-ʿAlqamī (10) owing to the affinity, closeness (11), and similarity between them in Shiʿi conviction, literature, and learning. Ibn al-Sāʿī has preserved many of his distinguished, polished panegyrics and poems (12). He surpassed his brother Abū al-Maʿālī Muwafaq al-Dīn ibn Hibat Allāh (13) in erudition and literary refinement, though
(1) The biography of Qadi Ibn Bint al-Aazz will appear in the Wafayat for the year 665 AH in this volume.
(2) The biography of Badr al-Din al-Sinjari will appear in the Wafayat for the year 663 AH in this volume, God willing.
(3) The biography of Qutuz will appear in the Wafayat for the year 658 AH in this volume, God willing.
(4) A, B: He was satirized by some, who composed the following couplet. These two lines appear in al-Nujum, Husn al-Muhadhara, and his Diwan (p. 109).
(5) Nasir al-Din Ibn al-Munir is Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Mansur Abu al-Abbas al-Jadhami al-Iskandari; he served as a judge, authored several works, and died in 683 AH in Alexandria. (Husn al-Muhadhara, 1/316–317)
(6) A, B: Presented in a lucid and elegant style.
(7) A, B: Ibn Abi-l-Hadid al-Iraqi on the poet.
(8) Biography of Ibn Abi-l-Hadid in the appendix to Miraat al-Zaman (1/62–70), Wafayat al-Ayan (5/392), ‘Ard al-Tarikh wa Tarikh al-Islam (14/779), and Fawat al-Wafayat (2/259–262).
(9) Sharh Nahj al-Balagha has several editions, the most recent edited by Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim in fifteen volumes.
(10) The biography of Ibn al-Alqami will appear in the Wafayat for the year 656 AH in this volume, God willing.
(11) A, B: al-Muqarana (The Comparison).
(12) A, B: His outstanding and exquisite poems.
(13) Muwafaq al-Din Ibn Hibbat Allah is al-Qasim; others say he was Ahmad ibn Hibbat Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Abi-l-Hadid al-Mada’ini al-Baghdadi. He died in 656 AH. Al-Dhahabi said of the two brothers, “They were among the foremost scholars and masters of discourse, poetry, prose, and eloquence.”