as al-Nayrabani. He ranked among the foremost devotees, known for worship and renunciation, and was one of the disciples of Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah. The aforementioned al-Ṣāḥib was present, together with a number of judges and leading notables.
On Monday, the twentieth (1) of Dhu al-Ḥijjah, Shaykh Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Dhahabī (2), the ḥadith scholar and memoriser, assumed the teaching post at the Turbah Umm al-Ṣāliḥ (3) in place of Kamāl al-Dīn ibn al-Shurayshī, who had died on the pilgrimage road (4) in Shawwāl after holding that chair for thirty-three years. Several judges attended al-Dhahabī’s installation.
On Tuesday morning, immediately after this lesson, the Ḥanbalī jurist Zayn al-Dīn ibn ʿUbaydān was brought from Baalbek and questioned about a dream he claimed to have seen while half-awake. The account was confused, jumbled, and full of rambling talk unbecoming of one in sound judgment. He had written it in his own hand, and some of his companions had forwarded it to me. The Shāfiʿī judge took him into custody, spared his life, administered a disciplinary beating, and had a public announcement made forbidding him to issue fatwas or contract marriages; thereafter he was released.
On Wednesday morning, Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Baṣikhān (5) took over the chair of Qur’an recitation at the Turbah Umm al-Ṣāliḥ, succeeding Shaykh Majd al-Dīn al-Tūnisī, who had died. The eminent dignitaries attended—I myself was present that day. Earlier, Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Kharūf al-Mawṣilī had likewise succeeded him as instructor of recitation in the Ashrafiyyah.
On Thursday, the twenty-third of Dhu al-Ḥijjah, our shaykh and teacher, the Imām, erudite scholar, ḥāfiẓ and authoritative master Abū al-Ḥajjāj Yūsuf ibn al-Zakī ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Yūsuf al-Mizzī assumed the leadership of the Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ashrafiyyah in place of Kamāl al-Dīn ibn al-Shurayshī. Only a few people attended, due to what some held in their hearts regarding his appointment, even though none before him was more entitled to it or better versed in ḥadith. [And what concern has he for them? Their presence would only have burdened him; their absence was a comfort. Allah knows best] (6).
Among the notable persons who died this year was the righteous, devout, and ascetic shaykh—the scrupulous exemplar, last of the early models and guide of the later generations—Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad, son of the pious shaykh ʿUmar, son of the eminent ascetic and gnostic Abū Bakr ibn Qawām ibn ʿAlī ibn Qawām.