Al-Ṣadr ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn: ʿAlī ibn Maʿālī al-Anṣārī al-Ḥarrānī (1), the accountant, known as Ibn al-Ruzayz. He was a virtuous and exceptionally gifted master of the science of arithmetic, from whom many people derived benefit. He died suddenly at the close of this year and was buried on Mount Qasiyun. I myself learned arithmetic through al-Ḥāḍirī, who had received it from ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Ṭayūrī, who in turn had taken it from him.

The preacher Sharf al-Dīn Abū al-ʿAbbās: Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Sibāʿ ibn Ḍiyāʾ al-Fazārī (2), shaykh, imām, and eminent scholar, and the brother of the celebrated Shafiʿi jurist Tāj al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. Born in 630 AH, he heard a great quantity of ḥadīth and benefited from the leading shaykhs of his age, such as Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and al-Sakhāwī (3) and others. He studied jurisprudence, issued legal opinions, engaged in scholarly debate, excelled, and outstripped his peers. He was a teacher of Arabic grammar, language, Qurʾānic readings, and the citation of prophetic ḥadīths, regularly visiting the shaykhs to read before them. Eloquent of speech and delightful in conversation, one never tired of his company. He taught at al-Ṭayyibah (4) and for a time at the Nāṣirī ribāṭ (5, a Sufi hospice), then moved to the pulpit of the Jarrāḥ Mosque (6). Later, in the year 703 AH, he succeeded al-Fāriqī as preacher of the Great Mosque of Damascus, where he remained until he died on Wednesday evening, the ninth (7) of Shawwāl, at the age of seventy-five.

The funeral prayer was held for him on Thursday morning at the Gate of the Preachers, and he was buried beside his father and brother at Bāb al-Ṣaghīr—may Allah be pleased with them. The office of preacher (8) was then taken over by his nephew, our shaykh, the eminent scholar Burhān al-Dīn.

The great ḥadīth master al-Dimyāṭī: He is the shaykh, imām, scholar, and ḥāfiẓ, the leading traditionist, Sharaf al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Khalaf ibn Abī al-Ḥasan ibn Sharaf ibn al-Khiḍr ibn Mūsā al-Dimyāṭī (9). In his day he carried the banner of this discipline—namely the science of ḥadīth and of language—despite his advanced age and lofty standing. His chains of transmission were of the highest rank, his narrations abundant, his understanding sound, and his compositions excellent and widely circulated; students journeyed to him from every corner of the world (10).