He passed away in al-Madinah al-Nabawiyyah toward the end of Ṣafar; he had been born (1) in 625 AH, transmitted a large corpus of hadith (2), resided in the Prophet’s City for fifty years, and performed forty consecutive pilgrimages while living there. The absentee funeral prayer (3) was offered for him in the Great Mosque of Damascus—may Allah have mercy on him.
• Shaykh Shayth ibn Shaykh ʿAlab al-Ḥarīrī died in the village of Busr in Ḥawrān on Friday, 13 Rabīʿ al-Ākhir. His brother Hasan and the fuqarāʾ from Damascus traveled there to console their elder brother, Hasan al-Akbar (4), on his loss.
• The righteous shaykh and Qur’an-reciter Jamāl al-Din ʿAbd al-Wāḥid (5) ibn Kathīr ibn Ḍirghām, originally of Egypt and later of Damascus, head of the Great Sabʿ guild (6) and of the Ghazāliyah. He had studied under al-Sakhāwī and attended hadith sessions. He died in late Rajab; the funeral prayer was held for him in the Umayyad Mosque, and he was buried near the dome of Shaykh Ruslān.
• The founder and endower of the Sāmariyyah—Grand Chancellor Sayf al-Din Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar al-Baghdādī al-Sāmari (7). [He endowed the Sāmariyyah] (8) that stands beside the Karūsiyyah in Damascus; it had been his residence, and he was buried there.
(1) B: His birth took place in the year [unspecified].
(2) A: He studied under numerous scholars; B: He produced many writings.
(3) A, Ṭ: He was given the funeral prayer in Damascus.
(4) B: In a village, he died on Friday, the 13th of Rabiʽ al-Thani. His brother Hasan traveled from Damascus, accompanied by the poor, to console their elder brother.
(5) Biography – ʻAbd al-Wahid ibn Kathir in Tarikh al-Islam (vol. 15, p. 841), Mu‘jam Shu‘arā’ al-Dhahabi (vol. 1, p. 426), and Ghayat al-Nihaya (vol. 1, p. 477). There his kunya is given as Abū Muḥammad, and his death is recorded in 690 AH.
(6) Al-Daris (vol. 2, p. 393).
(7) Biography – al-Samari in Tarikh Ibn al-Jazari (pp. 385–386), Tarikh al-Islam (vol. 15, p. 835), al-Wafi bil-Wafayat (vol. 8, p. 66; vol. 1, pp. 134–140), al-Daris (vol. 1, pp. 72–73), and al-Dalil al-Shafi (vol. 1, p. 81).
(8) A, B: The nisba is rendered as al-Sarmari. The correct form al-Sāmarī (with a fatḥa on the mīm and a kasra on the rā’ plus shadda) refers to Sarmin, a town on the Tigris; it also applies to ʽAli al-Sarmari. See al-Daris (vol. 1, p. 72) and Munadamat al-Atlal (p. 44). The Dār al-Hadith al-Sāmarīyya once stood near the Mahallat Miʽdhanat al-Shuhm, in the Duqaq al-Dusuki alley of Damascus (Mukhtasar al-Daris, p. 14). Badran notes that this alley is now called Salami Alley, opposite the lane behind the al-Buzuriyya market to the east; it has been converted into housing so that only foundation stones remain to mark its former site (Munadamat al-Atlal, p. 44).