Taha (1) ibn Ibrahim ibn Abi Bakr Kamal al-Din al-Hamadhani (2) al-Arbili, a Shafi‘i jurist.
He was a cultivated, accomplished man of letters and a poet, gifted at composing dūbayt (quatrains). He lived in Cairo until he died (4) there in Jumada al-Awwal of this very year. On one occasion he met King al-Ṣāliḥ Ayyub; when the king began to speak about the science of the stars (5), Taha immediately recited—off the cuff—these two lines (6) in the basīṭ metre:
Leave the stars to a fortune-teller who makes his living by them;
With firm resolve arise, O sovereign! (7)
The Prophet, and the Prophet’s Companions, forbade the stars,
And you have seen (8) the dominion they attained.
He once wrote to a friend named Shams al-Din, inviting him to visit after he had suffered from ophthalmia and recovered (9). In the ṭawīl metre he said:
“The oculist tells me, ‘Your eye is healed,
So trouble not your heart and be at ease.’
It has been some time, O Shams, since I beheld you,
And the sign of a sound eye is that it can gaze upon the sun.” (10)
ʿAbd al-Rahman (11) ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Hasan ibn ʿUthman (12), Jamal al-Din, son of Shaykh Najm al-Din al-Badaraʾi (13), originally from Baghdad and later of Damascus.
He held his father’s teaching chair in the family madrasah until (14) his death on Wednesday, the sixth of Rajab. He was buried at the foot of Mount Qasiyun. A man of standing and pleasant manners, he lived past fifty years—may Allah have mercy on him.
(1) Biography: Taha ibn Ibrahim — see the appendix to Mira’at al-Zaman (vol. 3, pp. 303–305), Tarikh al-Islam (vol. 15, p. 338), Fawat al-Wafayat (vol. 2, p. 130), Tabaqat al-Isnawi (vol. 1, p. 153), al-Nujum al-Zahira (vol. 7, p. 281), al-Dalil al-Shafi (vol. 1, p. 370), and Shudhurat al-Dhahab (vol. 7, p. 623).
(2) In the primary sources the name appears as al-Hamdani; the correct form is al-Hidhbani in al-Nujum al-Zahira and in the appendix to al-Mir’ah, and al-Haidbani in al-Dalil al-Shafi.
(3) Manuscript A reads “dh” and “bayt”; in the printed edition it appears as “rubayt.”
(4) Manuscript B states “kanat wafatuhu.”
(5) Manuscript B reads “‘uloom al-nahw” (grammatical sciences), which is an error.
(6) The two couplets are found in the appendix to al-Mir’ah, in Fawat al-Wafayat, in al-Nujum al-Zahira, and in al-Dalil al-Shafi.
(7) In Fawat al-Wafayat it reads “wa inhad bi-‘azm sahih ayyuhā al-malik.”
(8) In Fawat al-Wafayat it appears as “qad ‘āyanat.”
(9) The two couplets appear in the appendix to al-Mir’ah.
(10) Manuscript B reads “ramid al-‘ayn lam yubṣir in yubṣir al-shamsa.”
(11) Biography: al-Badra’i — see the appendix to Mira’at al-Zaman (vol. 3, p. 306), Tarikh al-Islam (vol. 15, p. 341), and al-Daris (vol. 1, p. 207).
(12) In the printed edition it reads “‘affan,” which is a corruption.
(13) Manuscript A reads “al-Barzani.” al-Badra’i is a nisba referring to Badraya, near Nahrawan by Baksaya, between the Bandanijayn and the environs of Wasit; the town lay south of the road leading to Khurasan. See al-Dalil al-Shafi (vol. 1, p. 316) and Buldan al-Khilafa (pp. 88, 107).
(14) Manuscript B reads “ilā ḥīn.”