and he had likewise received authorization from Abū Jaʿfar al-Saydalānī (1), ʿAfīfa al-Farafāniyya (2), and Ibn al-Laftawānī (3). He was a devout man, fond of transmitting hadith and extraordinarily generous to the students who frequented him. Ḥāfiẓ Jamāl al-Dīn al-Mizzī read to him the Great Muʿjam of al-Ṭabarānī, and heard it from him through the recitation of Ḥāfiẓ al-Barazālī (4), together with many others. He was born in 599 AH (5) and died on Sunday, the seventh of Ṣafar, the very day the pilgrims from the Ḥijāz reached Damascus; he had travelled with them and passed away after settling in the city.
Qāḍī Amīn al-Dīn al-Ashtarī (6), Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Shams al-Dīn Abī Bakr ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn Ṭalḥah al-Ḥalabī—known as al-Ashtarī—was a Shāfiʿī and a hadith scholar. He heard a vast number of traditions, mastered them, and endowed several volumes to the Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ashrafiyyah. [He died (9) at the Andalusian Khānqāh (10) on Thursday, the twenty-fourth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal, at the age of sixty-six.] Shaykh Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Nawawī used to commend him, sending young boys to read to him in his house because of the trust he placed in his honesty, restraint, and piety.
Shaykh Burhān al-Dīn Abū al-Thanāʾ (11) Maḥmūd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Marāghī, a Shāfiʿī, served as lecturer at the Falakiyyah (12).
(1) The printed edition reads “Abu Nasr.” See the biography of al-Saydallānī and its sources in Siyar A‘lam al-Nubala’, vol. 21, p. 430.
(2) The printed edition reads al-Farqāniyah, a corruption. See her biography in Siyar A‘lam al-Nubala’, vol. 21, p. 481.
(3) Editions T and B read al-Maydānī; Edition A (the autograph) reads al-Ma‘ūī; the al-Dāris edition reads Ibn al-Maghāzī—all corruptions. The correct name, as attested by al-Dhahabī’s own hand in his Tarikh al-Islam, is ‘Ubayd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Naṣr Abū Zur‘ah al-Luftuwānī al-Isfahānī. Al-Dhahabī notes in Wafayāt sanat 602 (Tarikh al-Islam, vol. 13, p. 64): “I do not know when he died; only that he granted ijāzah in this year to al-Burhān ibn al-Darajī, and granted … etc.” Al-Luftuwān is a village near Isfahan.
(4) Al-Barzālī mentions him in Tarikh al-Muqtafi, vol. 1, fols. 105–106 (photocopy).
(5) This term does not appear in the autograph; it is an editorial insertion, retained here for its usefulness.
(6) See the biography of al-Ashṭarī in Mir’āt al-Zamān, vol. 4, p. 165; Tarikh al-Islam, vol. 15, p. 443; al-I‘lām, p. 284; al-Ibar, p. 334; al-Ishārah, p. 372; al-Wafi bil-Wafayat, vol. 7, p. 124; Tabaqāt al-Isnawī, vol. 1, p. 454; al-Nujūm al-Zāhirah, vol. 7, pp. 356–357; al-Dalīl al-Shāfī, vol. 1, p. 55; al-Dāris, vol. 2, p. 141; Shudhuraat al-Dhahab, vol. 7, p. 647.
(7) In the original sources it reads “Abu”; the particle “ma” is supplied here for context.
(8) Edition B reads ‘Abd Allāh in place of ‘Abd al-Jabbār, a corruption.
(9) Edition B reads “wa kānat wafātuhu” (“and his death was…”).
(10) Al-Dāris, vol. 2, p. 141.
(11) See al-Marāghī’s entry in Mir’āt al-Zamān, vol. 4, p. 177; Tarikh al-Islam, vol. 15, p. 458; al-Ibar, p. 336; al-Ishārah, p. 372; Tabaqāt al-Isnawī, vol. 2, p. 456; al-Nujūm al-Zāhirah, vol. 7, p. 356; al-Dāris, vol. 1, pp. 432–433; Shudhuraat al-Dhahab, vol. 7, p. 653.
(12) Al-Dāris, vol. 1, p. 431.