He was Shihab al-Din Abu al-Thana’, Mahmud ibn Salman ibn Fahd al-Halabi, later known as al-Dimashqi. Born in Aleppo in 644 AH (1), he studied hadith and devoted himself to language, literature, and poetry. Endowed with many virtues, he excelled in the art of chancery composition, both verse and prose, and in that field he produced remarkable, first-rate books (2) and treatises. He served in the chancery (dīwān al-inshāʾ) for about fifty years, after which he was appointed Confidential Secretary in Damascus for roughly eight years, until he died on the night of Saturday, 12 Shaʿbān, in his home near Bāb al-Nāṭifiyyīn—formerly the house of al-Qāḍī al-Fāḍil. The funeral prayer was held in the congregational mosque, and he was buried in a mausoleum (3) he had built near al-Yaghmūriyya. He had passed his eightieth year—may Allah have mercy on him.
Our shaykh, the authoritative, long-lived, widely travelled transmitter (4) ʿAfīf al-Din al-Āmidī (5)—ʿAfīf al-Din Isḥāq ibn Yaḥyā ibn Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Ismāʿīl al-Āmidī, later al-Dimashqī, a Ḥanafī and the shaykh of Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ẓāhiriyya—was born around 640 AH and heard hadith from many teachers, among them Yūsuf ibn Khalīl and Majd al-Din Ibn Taymiyya. He was a handsome shaykh, pleasing to listen to, fond of narration, and possessed of merit. He died on the night of Monday, 12 Ramaḍān, and was buried on Mount Qāsiyūn. He was the father of Fakhr al-Din, the overseer of the armies and of the congregational mosque.
One day earlier the ṣadr Muʿīn al-Din Yūsuf ibn Zughayb al-Raḥabī (6), one of the foremost trustworthy merchants, passed away.
In Ramaḍān al-Badr al-ʿAwwām also died: Muḥammad (7) ibn ʿAlī al-Bābā al-Ḥalabī. He was unrivalled in swimming and of pleasant character. A group of merchants once benefited from him in the Yemeni Sea: their ship sank, and they sought refuge on a rock in mid-sea. Allah saved them through him, as he carried them—one after another—to the shore (8); they were thirteen in all. He then dived and recovered their money from the sea-bed after they had been left penniless and close to ruin. He was devout and upright; he had recited the Quran and performed the pilgrimage ten times. He lived to the age of eighty-eight—may Allah show him mercy—and he frequently attended the lessons of Shaykh Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya (9).