Born in 585 AH, he heard hadith, studied jurisprudence, and issued fatwas at the Ṣāliḥiyya (1). He later assumed the office of market inspector in Cairo, and in 663 AH (2)—when a judge from every legal school was appointed—he was likewise made judge. He at first refused most vehemently, but finally consented under pressure on condition that he would accept no judicial stipend (jāmakiyya). Renowned for his learning and piety, he was narrated from by Qadi Badr al-Din Ibn Jamaʿa (3) and others. He died with five days remaining in Dhu al-Qaʿda.
The eunuch Shujaʿ al-Din Murshid al-Muzaffari al-Hamawi (4).
He was a courageous hero among heroes, possessed of sound judgment; neither his master nor al-Malik al-Zahir would oppose his counsel. He died in Hama and was buried in his own mausoleum near the school he had founded there.
Ibn Sabʿin (5): ʿAbd al-Haqq ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn Nasr ibn Muhammad ibn Nasr ibn Muhammad, Qutb al-Din Abu Muhammad al-Mursi (6) al-Ruquti (7), the nisba referring to Ruqūṭa, a town near Murcia (8).
He was born in 614 AH and occupied himself with the sciences of the Ancients and with philosophy, from which a strain of mystical “union” (9) emerged for him, and he composed works on the subject. Skilled in sīmiyāʾ (occult talismanry), he would employ it to beguile foolish princes and wealthy men, claiming it to be one of the spiritual states of the Sufi masters. Among his writings are the book al-Badʾ (10) and Kitāb al-Huwa. He resided for a time in Mecca and gained control of
(1) In the Ṭ edition: “bi-l-ṣalāḥīyah” (with validity).
(2) In A: “sannah sitt” (six years); this is a corruption.
(3) The biography of Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿd Allāh ibn Jamāʿah al-Kinānī al-Ḥamawī appears under the year 733 in the final volume of his monumental Wafayāt.
(4) The biography of al-Ṭawashī Shujāʿ al-Dīn is found in the supplement to Mirʾāt al-Zamān (vol. 2, pp. 465–466), in al-Mukhtaṣar fī Akhbār al-Bashar by Abū al-Fidāʾ (vol. 4, p. 7), and in Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 15, p. 177).
(5) The biography of Ibn Sabʿīn appears in the supplement to Mirʾāt al-Zamān (vol. 2, p. 460); Tārīkh al-Islām (vol. 15, p. 168); al-Iʿlām bi-Wafayāt al-Aʿlām (p. 279); al-ʿIbar (vol. 2, pp. 291–292); al-Ishārah (p. 363); al-Nujūm al-Zāhirah (vol. 7, pp. 232–233, 235); al-Wāfī bi-l-Wafayāt (vol. 18, p. 60); Fawāt al-Wafayāt (vol. 2, pp. 253–255); Ṭabaqāt al-Shahrānī (vol. 1, p. 203); al-Kawākib al-Durrīyah by al-Manāwī (vol. 1, p. 105); Shadharāt al-Dhahab (vol. 7, pp. 573–575); Nafḥ al-Ṭīb (vol. 2, p. 196); and Nīl al-Ibtihāj (p. 184).
(6) In Usūlinā: al-Maqdisī; this is a corruption, and here the reading follows its source.
(7) In the supplement to Mirʾah the term is rendered as al-Zaqūtī, and raqūṭah as zaqūṭah.
(8) al-ʿAqd al-Thamīn by al-Fāsī (vol. 5, p. 326) and al-Nujūm (vol. 7, p. 233).
(9) In B and Ṭ: al-ilḥād (atheism); here it follows A; consistent with its sources that he and his followers, the so-called Sabʿīniyya, professed al-waḥda al-mutlaqa (absolute unity).
(10) al-Nad; in B: al-Yad; in Ṭ: al-Badū. In Shadharāt: Kitāb al-Buddān. In its margin is the following note: in al-Iḥāṭah and al-ʿAqd al-Thamīn: al-Budd (singular). Professor Fuʾād Sayyid (may God have mercy on him) commented on al-ʿAqd al-Thamīn: “His name is known to be Budd al-ʿĀrif or Badʾ al-ʿĀrif. A manuscript dated 679 is held in the Jarallah Istanbul Library (no. 1273), and another in Berlin (no. 1744).”