settled in Damascus. He used to meet frequently with Ibn Khallikan (1), and more than one scholar spoke highly of him. Qadi Badr al-Din Ibn Jamaʿah (2) transmitted from him, and he granted an ijazah to our shaykh ʿIlm al-Din al-Barzali (3). Ibn Malik passed away in Damascus on the night of Wednesday, the twelfth of Ramadan, and was buried in the cemetery of Qadi ʿIzz al-Din Ibn al-Saʿigh (4) at Qasiyun (5).

Nasir al-Tusi (6) – Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Tusi (7) – was known both as Mawla Nasir al-Din and as Khawaja Nasir al-Din. In his youth he applied himself to study, mastered the rational sciences, and authored works on them, particularly in kalam. He produced a commentary on Ibn Sina’s “al-Isharat,” served as vizier to the Ismaʿili lords of the Alamut strongholds, and later to Hulagu. He was with Hulagu at the fall of Baghdad, and some claim that he advised Hulagu Khan to kill the caliph—Allah knows best. In my judgment, such a deed could never proceed from an intelligent, virtuous man (8).

A Baghdadi scholar praised him, saying, “He was intelligent, virtuous, and of noble character.” He was buried at the shrine of Musa ibn Jaʿfar, in a crypt that had been prepared for the caliph al-Nasir li-Din Allah. He was the one who built the observatory at Maragha, installed in it scholars—philosophers, theologians, jurists, hadith experts, physicians, and other men of learning—erected over it a great dome, and stocked it with an immense library. He died in Baghdad (9) on the twelfth of Dhu al-Hijjah in this very year, at the age of seventy-five. His poetry is vigorous and fine. His early studies were under al-Muʿin Salim ibn Badran ibn ʿAli al-Misri, a Muʿtazili with Shiʿi leanings (10), and many of those inclinations took hold of him until they corrupted (11) his creed.