Al-Najīb ibn Shuqayshiqa al-Dimashqī (1) was one of the officially appointed witnesses in Damascus. He had attended hadith sessions, and he endowed his house in Darb al-Baniyāsī as a dar al-hadith (hadith college); that same house had been the residence of our teacher, the ḥadith master al-Mizzī, before he moved to the Ashrafiyyah Dar al-Hadith.

Abū Shāmah said: Ibn Shuqayshiqa—namely al-Najīb, Abū al-Fatḥ Naṣr Allah ibn [Abī al-ʿIzz ibn] Abī Ṭālib al-Shaybānī—was infamous for lying, weak religious commitment, and other faults. He was one of the witnesses whose integrity was impugned, and he was in no way (2) someone from whom knowledge should be taken.

He went on: Nevertheless, when Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā [ibn Hibat Allah], surnamed al-Ṣadr ibn Sanī al-Dawlah (3), assumed the office of qāḍī (4) of Damascus, he seated him among the witnesses, whereupon a poet (5) recited:

“The wretched Shuqayshiqa has taken his seat to testify—
Woe to you all (6)! What sudden change (7) has come about?
Has the Earthquake struck, or has the Antichrist (8) been released,
Or have the men of guidance (9) all disappeared?
How strange that a man of unfastened creed,
Ignorant of the Sacred Law, has been allowed to sit in judgment!”

Abū Shāmah (10) further said: In the year 657 AH there died (11) a certain heretic (zindīq) who dabbled in philosophy and in the speculative sciences of the ancients. He resided in the madrasahs of the Muslim jurists and, so I was told, corrupted the beliefs of a group of young students. He would openly disparage the Prophets—peace be upon them—and he was known as al-Fakhr ibn al-Badīʿ al-Bandahī.