The righteous matron (1): Sitt al-Niʿam (2), daughter of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAbdūs al-Ḥarrāniyyah and mother of Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyyah, lived beyond seventy (3) years (4) and was never granted a daughter. She died on Wednesday, the twentieth of Shawwāl, and was buried in the al-Ṣūfiyyah cemetery. A great throng, indeed an immense crowd, attended her funeral. May Allah have mercy on her.
Shaykh Najm al-Dīn Mūsā ibn ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad (5), originally of Aleppo (6) and later of Damascus, was the eminent scribe known as al-Buṣbuṣ, the unrivalled master of calligraphy in his day, especially in the mazūj and mathallath scripts. He spent fifty years writing for the public, and I am among those for whom he copied—may Allah reward him. He was a gracious shaykh, handsome in appearance, and a fine poet (7).
He died on Tuesday, the tenth of Dhū al-Qaʿdah, and was buried in the Bāb al-Ṣaghīr cemetery at the age of sixty-five.
Shaykh Taqī al-Dīn al-Mawṣilī (8): Abū Bakr ibn Muḥammad (9) ibn Abī Bakr ibn Abī al-Karam, senior Qurʾān teacher at the Miḥrāb al-Ṣaḥābah and long-time instructor in the Ibn ʿĀmir reading circle. For about fifty years people benefited from his tuition in recitation and the various readings; he guided countless students to complete the Qurʾān. He would attend their completion gatherings and collect the written attestations the boys recited on their khatma nights. He also studied hadith and was a man of piety and virtue.
He passed away on the night of Tuesday, the seventeenth of Dhū al-Qaʿdah, and was buried at Bāb al-Ṣaghīr—may Allah have mercy on him.
The righteous, ascetic reciter (10): Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn al-Khaṭīb Salāmah ibn Sālim ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Yanbūb al-Mālinī, one of the renowned devout men attached to the Great Mosque of Damascus. He heard hadith and taught Qurʾān to the people for nearly fifty years, correcting children’s pronunciation of the difficult letters. Afflicted in his mouth, he carried a bowl beneath his chin because of the profuse flow of saliva and other fluids. He had surpassed eighty years by four.