Biography of Ibn al-Jawzi (Abou al-Faraj Abd ar-Rahman)

Al-Abbbar said: "He composed on the rulings of the Quran a book among the finest written on that."

It is said: a hemiplegia and a paralysis reached him, altering his memory two years before his death. Hearing was therefore withheld from him until he died in Joumada al-Akhira of the year five hundred ninety-seven.

I say: those who narrated from him: Isma'il ibn Yahya al-Attar; Abd al-Ghani ibn Muhammad; Abou al-Husayn Yahya ibn Abdallah ad-Dani the secretary; and ach-Charf al-Moursi: he heard from him the "Mouwatta".

No. 192: Abou al-Faraj Ibn al-Jawzi, Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ali.

The sheikh, the imam, the deeply learned, the hafiz, the exegete, the sheikh of Islam, the pride of Iraq, Jamal ad-Din, Abou al-Faraj Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Hammadi ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ja'far ibn Abdallah ibn al-Qasim ibn an-Nadr ibn al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abdallah, son of the jurist Abd ar-Rahman, son of the jurist al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Khalifa, the messenger of Allah, Abou Bakr as-Siddiq: the Qourachite, the Taymite, the Bakrite, the Baghdadian, the Hanbalite, the preacher, the author of works.

The birth and the teachers of Ibn al-Jawzi

He was born in the year nine, or ten, and five hundred.

The first thing he heard was in the year sixteen.

He heard from: Abou al-Qasim ibn al-Housseyn; Abou Abdallah al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Bari'; Ali ibn Abd al-Wahid ad-Daynawari; Ahmad ibn Ahmad al-Moutawakkili; Isma'il ibn Abi Salih the muezzin; the jurist Abou al-Hasan ibn az-Zaghouni; Hibbatallah ibn at-Tabar the silk merchant; Abou Ghalib ibn al-Banna; Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Mazrafi; Abou Ghalib Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Mawardi; Abou al-Qasim Abdallah ibn Muhammad al-Isbahani the preacher; the judge Abou Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Baqi al-Ansari; Isma'il ibn as-Samarqandi; Yahya ibn al-Banna; Ali ibn al-Mouwahhid; Abou Mansour ibn Khayroun; Badr ach-Chihi; Abou Sa'd Ahmad ibn Muhammad az-Zawzani; Abou Sa'd Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Baghdadi the hafiz; Abd al-Wahhab ibn al-Moubarak al-Anmati the hafiz; Abou as-Sou'oud Ahmad ibn Ali ibn al-Moujli; Abou Mansour Abd ar-Rahman ibn Zourayq al-Qazzaz; Abou al-Waqt as-Sijzi; Ibn Nasir; Ibn al-Batti; and a group whose total is some ninety sheikhs, from whom he extracted a "Maschkaykha" in two fascicules.

He did not travel for hadith, but he possessed the "Musnad of the imam Ahmad"; the "Generations of Ibn Sa'd"; the "Chronicle of al-Khatib"; elevated things; the "Two Sahihs"; the four "Sunan"; the "Hiya"; and several works and fascicules from which he extracted.

He was the last to narrate from the Daynawari and the Moutawakkili.

He profited in hadith from the constant company of Ibn Nasir, and in the Quran and literature from Sibt al-Khayyat and Ibn al-Jawaliqi, and in fiqh from a group.

The narrators of Ibn al-Jawzi

Those who narrated from him: his son, the eminent scholar Muhyi ad-Din Youssouf, tutor of Dar al-Mousta'sim billah; his eldest son Ali the copyist; his grandson the preacher Chams ad-Din Youssouf ibn Qouzghouli the Hanafite, author of the "Mirror of the times"; the hafiz Abd al-Ghani; the sheikh Mouwaffaq ad-Din Ibn Qoudama; Ibn ad-Doubaythi; Ibn an-Naqqar; Ibn Khalil; ad-Diya; al-Yaldani; an-Najib al-Harrani; Ibn Abd ad-Da'im; and other people.

By authorization: the sheikh Chams ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman; Ibn al-Boukhari; Ahmad ibn Abi al-Khayr; al-Khadir ibn Hammouya; the pole Ibn Assroune.

He was the head without rival of the reminder: he uttered enchanting verse, and prose surpassing in metaphor; he expanded, amazed, enraptured, abounded: none came before him nor after him like him. He bore the banner of preaching, attended to its arts, with the fine bearing, the sweet voice, the impress upon souls, the beautiful conduct. He was a sea of exegesis, an authority on lives and chronicle, described by the fine hadith and the knowledge of its arts, a jurist, knowing consensus and disagreement, good in participation in medicine, possessed of refinement, understanding, wit, memory, and recall, bent upon collecting and composing, with composure and self-adornment, fine insight, firmness of expression, softness of qualities and praiseworthy descriptions, and an abundant veneration among the elite and the common: I know no one who composed what he composed.

His father died when he was three, and his aunt raised him. His relatives were merchants in copper: at times he would write his name in the audition Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ali as-Saffar.

Then, when he grew, his aunt carried him to Ibn Nasir, who made him hear much. He loved preaching and devoted himself to it while an adolescent: he preached to the people while a child. Then he never ceased to go out to the market, exalted and raised high in it, the crowd pressing upon him, marked by the polish and the proverbial preaching; his perfection increasing and his fame spreading, until he died, may Allah have mercy on him and pardon him: would that he had not waded into interpretation, nor differed from his imam.

The works of Ibn al-Jawzi

He composed in exegesis the "Moughni", great; then abridged it in four volumes and named it "Zad al-Massir". He has "The notice of the discerning man", in language, one volume; "The visages and the correspondences", one volume; "The branches of the branches", one volume; "The gathering of the Musnads", seven volumes, and it did not comprehend, and it scarcely did; "The gardens", two volumes; "The purging of the transport", two volumes; "The springs of the accounts", two volumes; "The verification in the questions of divergence", two volumes; "The difficulties of the Sahih", four volumes; "The forged hadiths", two volumes; "The vain things", two volumes; "The weak", one volume; "The inseminating of the intellects", one volume; "The ordered in chronicle", ten volumes; "The doctrine in the madhhab", one volume; "The victory in the divergences", two volumes; "The famous questions", two volumes; "The gem-stones", preaching, one volume; "The breeze of enchantment", one volume; "The selection", one volume; "The dazzling", one volume; "The cream of the cream", four volumes; "The accounts of the virtuous", one volume; "The accounts of the women", one volume; "The mover of the resolution of the sedentary", one volume; "The seated abode", one volume; "The blame of passion", one volume; "The deceits of the devil", one volume.

"The capture of the thought", three volumes; "The intelligent", one volume; "The heedless", one volume; "The benefits of medicine", one volume; "The rain of Nedjd", one volume; "The wits", one volume; "The blazing", one volume; "The enrapturing", one volume; "The limit of the desired", one volume; "The branches of the minds", one volume; "The importunate", one volume; "The solace of the sorrowful", one volume; "The path of the aspirants", two volumes; "The fidelity to the merits of the Chosen", two volumes; "The merits of Abou Bakr", one volume; "The merits of Umar", one volume; "The merits of Ali", one volume; "The merits of Ibrahim ibn Adham", one volume; "The merits of al-Foudayl", one volume; "The merits of Bichr al-Hafi", one volume; "The merits of Rabi'a", a fascicule; "The merits of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz", one volume; "The merits of Sa'id ibn al-Moussayyib", two fascicules; "The merits of al-Hasan", two fascicules; "Ath-Thawri", one volume; "The merits of Ahmad", one volume;

"The merits of ash-Chafi'i", one volume; "The accord of the companion", one volume; "The merits of several", a fascicule each; "The abridged of the branches of Ibn Aqil", in some fifteen volumes; "The merits of the Abyssinians", one volume; "The essence of the zest of the tales"; "The merit of the tomb of Ahmad"; "The merits of the days"; "The causes of the beginning"; "The intermediaries of the necklaces"; "The shards of the necklaces in the chronicle of the covenants"; "The finales"; "The Youssoufian sessions"; "The treasures of life"; "The waking of the sleepers on the states of the newborn and the animal"; "The breeze of the garden"; "The firmness at the moment of death"; "Death and what is after it", one volume; his "Diwan", several volumes; "The merits of Ma'rouf"; "The seclusion"; "The discipline"; "The victory over Egypt"; "It was and it was", in preaching; "The sermons of the pearls"; "The abrogating and the abrogated"; "The seasons of life"; "The lives of the eminent"; and many things he left, and I have not seen them.

He had an immense fortune and a far-reaching fame in preaching: kings, viziers, some of the caliphs, imams, and grandees attended his circles; hardly would the session number less than many myriads, until it was said in some of his sessions: the crowd was counted at a hundred thousand.

There is no doubt that this occurred; and had it occurred, he could not have made them hear, nor would the place contain them.

His grandson Abou al-Mouzaffar said: "I heard my grandfather on the pulpit say: with these two fingers I have written two thousand volumes; one hundred thousand repented at my hands; twenty thousand converted at my hands. And he completed the Quran every week, and went out of his house only to the Friday prayer or the session."

I say: and what then became of the prayer in congregation?!

Then his grandson enumerated his works, and mentioned among them the book "The chosen among the verses", ten volumes; "The pearl of the necklace", in chronicle, four volumes; "The proverbs", one volume; "The beneficial in the four doctrines", two volumes; "The clairvoyance in preaching", three volumes; "The heads of glass vessels", two volumes; then he said: "The total of his works is two hundred and some fifty books."

I say: so was found in his handwriting before his death that his compositions reached two hundred and fifty works.

The gems of the phrases of Ibn al-Jawzi

And among the gems of his phrases:

"The scorpions of the fates sting, and the youth of the body of hopes forbids, and the water of life in the vessel of life strains."

"O emir: remember, at the moment of power, the justice of Allah over you; and at the moment of punishment, the power of Allah over you; and do not quench your wrath with the sickness of your religion."

And he said to a friend: "You are, in the widest of excuse, for falling behind me, for the trust I have in you; and in the narrowest of it, for my longing for you."

And a man said to him: "I did not sleep last night, out of my longing for the session." He said: "You seek the spectacle; whereas the night ought rather that you not sleep."

A man came to him moved by hate and said: "O my master, we want a word we shall transmit from you: which of the two is better, Abou Bakr or Ali?"

He said: "Sit." He sat, then rose and repeated his saying. He seated him, then he rose and said: "Sit: you are better than each one."

Another asked him in the days of the appearance of the Shiites, and he said: "The better of the two is he whose daughter was beneath him." And this is an ambiguous phrase contenting the two parties.

Another asked him: "Which is better: that I glorify, or that I seek forgiveness?" He said: "The soiled garment has more need of soap than of incense."

And concerning the hadith "The lifespan of my community is between sixty and seventy", he said: "The lifespans of the first ones were long because of the length of the beginning; then when the caravan neared the land of residence, it was said: spur the mounts."

He said: "Whoever is content, his life is good; and whoever covets, his roaming is long."

He said one day in his preaching: "O commander of the faithful: if you speak, I fear for you; and if you are silent, I fear over you; and I prefer my fear over you to my fear of you. The word of the sincere adviser: fear Allah, is better than the word of the sayer: you are a people of a house forgiven."

He said: "Pharaoh of Egypt boasts of a river he caused to flow: how daring he is!"

And this chapter is long: in his precious books there is of this and its likes.

As for Ja'far, who is his ancestor at the ninth degree: Ibn Dhuhya said: "Ja'far is al-Jawzi: he was attributed to a canal of the canals of Bassora called Djouza."

It is said: "There was in his house a nut whose like was never reached."

The canal of the river: its crevice; and the canal of the sea: the mooring of ships.

Abou al-Mouzaffar said: "My grandfather read the Quran and studied fiqh under Abou Bakr ad-Daynawari the Hanbalite, and Ibn al-Farra'."

I say: he read the Quran before Sibt al-Khayyat.

His sheikh Ibn az-Zaghouni concerned himself with his affair and taught him preaching, and he engaged in the branches of the sciences, and took the language from Abou Mansour ibn al-Jawaliqi. At times a hundred thousand attended his session, and Allah placed in the hearts acceptance and awe.

He said: "He was detached from the world, withdrawing from it. He sat in the great mosque of the palace and of ar-Roussafa, and at the gate of Badr, and elsewhere," until he said:

"He never joked with anyone, nor played with a child, nor ate from a source whose lawfulness he was not certain of."

Abou Abdallah Ibn ad-Doubaythi said in his "Chronicle": "Our sheikh Jamal ad-Din, the author of the works, mastered the branches of the sciences: exegesis, fiqh, hadith, chronicles, and other than that. Toward him reached the knowledge of hadith and its elevation, and the standing upon its sound as against its defective. He was among the finest of the people in speech, the most complete in versification, the sweetest of tongue, the most generous in exposition. He studied fiqh under the Daynawari, read preaching before Abou al-Qasim al-Alawi, and he was blessed in his life and his knowledge. He narrated his compositions many times, and recited to me, by an intermediary, of himself:

O dweller of the world, make ready,
And await the day of parting,
And prepare a provision for the journeying:
For one shall be driven in company.
Weep over the sins with tears
Trickling from the clouds of restraint.
O you who wasted your time,
Are you content with what perishes, you who abide?

I questioned him about his birth more than once, and he would say: about the year ten, approximately.

And I questioned his brother Umar, and he said: in the year five hundred eight, approximately."

Among his works: "The Taysir in exegesis", one volume; "The branches of the branches in the sciences of the Quran", one volume; "The abundance of the branches in the meanings of the Quran", one volume; "The announcement of the seven readings", one volume; "The indication of the chosen readings", a fascicule; "The notice of the watchful of the equivocal springs"; "The pure in the conjoined and the divergent", two volumes; "The error and the right among the hadiths of the shooting star", one volume; "The chosen benefits", fifty-six fascicules; "The lions of the thicket in the knowledge of the Companions"; "The veil of the titles", one volume; "The scrupulous in genealogy", one volume; "The garlanded", one volume; "The enchained chains", one volume; "The best of treasures", one volume; "The gathered", one volume;

"The plague of the traditionists", a fascicule; "The stressor", one volume; "The solace of the saddened in chronicle", two volumes; "The glory of the Adoudid", one volume; "The illustrious in the days of an-Nasir", one volume; "The illuminating by the grace of al-Mousta'di", one volume; "The epochs in the mention of the imam an-Nasir", one volume; "The dawn of the Nourid", one volume; "The Salahian glory", one volume; "The merits of the Arabs", one volume; "The bridle of assimilation against the hands of the people of transcendence", one volume; "The wonders attesting the existence of the Maker", one volume; "The creed criticized", a fascicule; "The honour of Islam", a fascicule; "Gold cast in fiqh", one volume; "The eloquence in fiqh", one volume; "The summary in fiqh", one volume; "The grey falcon", one volume; "The prize of the two days", one volume; "The light in the refutation of Ilkya", one volume.

"The dispute", three fascicules; "The lifting of the grievance on the fast of the day of doubt", a fascicule; "The rites", a fascicule; "Forbidding the rear", a fascicule; "Forbidding the temporary marriage", a fascicule; "The waiting period in the principles of fiqh", a fascicule; "The inheritance shares", a fascicule; "Standing the night", three fascicules; "The reckoning of the life", a fascicule; "The high veil", a fascicule; "The blame of envy", a fascicule; "The blame of the intoxicant", a fascicule; "The mention of the talion", one volume; "The hafiz", one volume; "The Alid traditions", one volume; "The reaching arrow", two fascicules; "The state of al-Hallaj", two fascicules; "The tenderness of the emirs toward the scholars", two fascicules; "The conquests of conquests", two fascicules; "Informing the living of the faults of the living", two fascicules;

"Incitement to knowledge", one volume; "The supplement upon Ibn Aqil", a fascicule; "The suture of the liver", a fascicule; "Incitement to seek the child", a fascicule; "The gleaning of the benefits in medicine", two volumes; "The care of the elders", a fascicule; "The improvised in preaching", one volume; "The delicacies", one volume; "The gift", one volume; "The sessions", one volume; "The witness and the witnessed", one volume; "The hope", one volume; "The songs of meanings", one volume; "The gleaning of the outcasts", two fascicules; "The gleam of the jewels", one volume; "The lunar sessions", one volume; "The gem-stones of sermons", two fascicules; "The pearls of sermons", two fascicules; "The Friday sermons", three fascicules; "The Seljuk exhortations"; "The pearl"; "The sapphire"; "The attestations of Ramadan"; "The royal consolations"; "The spirit of spirits"; "The treasures of symbols".

It is said: his works approach the three hundred.

And of his sayings: "Never does a man's hope gather, but his death strives in neglecting it."

And he said of a preacher: "Beware of the physician unknown: at times he names a poison and knows not the named."

And in the session there was a man who beautified his speech and swayed to it. One day he fell silent. Abou al-Faraj turned to him and said: "Haroun, your phrase is an aider to my speech of Moussa: send it as a rearguard with me."

And he said one day: "The people of dialectic say: in the heaven there is no Lord, in the Quran no Quran, in the grave no prophet: three bares of yours."

And some of the dissenters attended his session, and he recited upon the pulpit:

"What has the oudhrite passion in our homes? Where is the soft one, from the palaces of Babylon?"

And he said, while a man dear to him was in the session: "And wonder! We are all alike in the recital of the absent: why then did you alone find:

'I concealed the love until it shone through me; and when the disease is concealed, it kills.
Between your eyes are the balms of sleep: leave sleep to the mistresses of the veiled tents.'"

I have gathered of the accounts of the sheikh Abou al-Faraj a booklet in the "Chronicle of Islam".

The trial of Ibn al-Jawzi

There befell him in the last of his life a tribulation: they slandered him before the caliph an-Nasir concerning an affair whose truth diverged. There came the one who cursed him, humiliated him, seized him by the hand, sealed his house, scattered his household. Then he was placed in a boat to the city of Wasit: he was imprisoned there in a strait house, and he would wash his garment and cook something. He remained on that five years, in which he never entered a bath.

Ar-Rukn Abd as-Salam ibn Abd al-Wahhab, son of the sheikh Abd al-Qadir, rose against him. Now Ibn al-Jawzi gave the sheikh Abd al-Qadir no justice, belittling his worth; his sons hated him, and their companion Ibn al-Qassab slandered. Now ar-Rukn was of evil creed, philosophizing: his books were burned at the indication of Ibn al-Jawzi, and their school was taken and given to Ibn al-Jawzi. Ar-Rukn grew bitter. Now Ibn al-Qassab the vizier sought vengeance: ar-Rukn came to him and said: "Where do you stand concerning Ibn al-Jawzi the nassibi?" he too being of the sons of Abou Bakr. Ar-Rukn poured his bile upon the sheikh. He came, humiliated him, took him with him in a boat, the sheikh wearing a shirt without trousers, and on his head a small cap. Now the governor of Wasit was a Shi'ite also. Ar-Rukn said to him: "Give me this doer, that I may throw him into a cistern."

He rebuked him and said: "O heretic, shall I do this to a mere word? Bring the writ of the commander of the faithful: by Allah, were he upon my doctrine, I would spend my spirit in his service."

Ar-Rukn returned to Baghdad.

The cause of the sheikh's deliverance was that his son Youssouf grew and engaged, and worked during this period at preaching while a child, and advanced until the mother of the caliph interceded. The sheikh was freed, and his son Youssouf came to him: he went out, and did not return from Wasit until he had read, he and his son, by his instruction, the ten before Ibn al-Baqillani; and the sheikh was about eighty. Consider then this high ambition.

Ibn Nouqta the hafiz transmitted this, from the judge Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Hasan.

Al-Mouwaffaq Abd al-Latif said in a work of his: "Ibn al-Jawzi was of pleasant form, sweet qualities, rich melody, measured in movements and tones, delicious in banter. A hundred thousand attended his session, or more. He wasted nothing of his time: he wrote in the day four booklets. He had in every science a share; but in exegesis he was among the eminent, in hadith among the hafiz, in chronicle among the expansive. He had abundant fiqh. As for the rhymed preaching, he had in it a strong mastery. And in medicine he has the book 'The gleaning', two volumes."

He said: "He watched over preserving his health, softening his temperament, and what benefited his mind of strength, and his intellect of sharpness."

"Most of his food was endives and stews, and he substituted for fruit drinks and pastes. His clothing was the best of clothing: the white, soft, perfumed. He had a piercing mind, a ready answer, and sweet jest and jesting, and he never parted from a beautiful slave girl. I read in the handwriting of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Jalil al-Mouqani: that Ibn al-Jawzi drank the balaudhour and his beard fell: it was very short, and he dyed it black until he died."

He said: "He had many errors in what he composed: he discharged the book and did not examine it."

I say: so are his illusions and varieties of leaving revision, and taking knowledge from sheets; and he composed something that, had he lived a second life, he would not have sufficed to correct and perfect it.

His grandson said: "My grandfather sat beneath the dust of the mother of the caliph, near Ma'rouf al-Karkhi, and I was present. He recited verses that closed the session, and they are:

Allah, I ask Him to lengthen my term,
That I attain, by His grace, what is in my intent.
I have an ambition in knowledge whose like is not,
And it is that which gained: the resurrections, it is that.
Created from the mighty clot unto the hopes,
It was called to the attainment of perfection, and it answered.
How many a session I had, were its states compared,
They would resemble Paradise.
I long for it now that its days have passed in idleness,
And the she-camel is excused when she groans.
O, shall the nights, in gathering, have a return?
Or shall the valley of Mina have a glance?
It was sweeter than the east winds and their changes,
And than the dove singing in the thicket.
In it the self-evident truths that none reached,
Creation, without covering nor passed night.

In verses.

The death of Ibn al-Jawzi

"And he descended, and fell ill five days, and died on Friday night, between the two evening prayers, the thirteenth of Ramadan, of the year five hundred ninety-seven, in his house in Qatifta."

"And my mother related to me that she heard him say before his death: what have I to do with peacocks? he repeating it: you have brought me these peacocks."

"And our sheikh Ibn Soukayna attended his washing at the time of dawn. The markets were shut, and the people came. His son Abou al-Qasim Ali prayed over him by consensus, for the notables could not reach him. Then they went with him to the great mosque of al-Mansour, and prayed over him: it was too narrow for the people, and it was a witnessed day. He did not reach his grave in the cemetery of Ahmad until the time of the Friday prayer. It was in the month of Tammouz: the people broke the fast, and threw themselves into the water," until he said:

"And there reached his grave of shrouds but little, so he said: the charge upon him. He was lowered into the pit, and the muezzin saying: Allah is greatest; and the people grieved for him."

"And they remained at his grave the whole month of Ramadan, completing the completions, by candle and lamps. And the traditionist Ahmad ibn Salman as-Soukkari saw him that night in sleep, upon a pulpit of ruby, seated in a seat of truth, and the angels before him."

"On the morning of Saturday we held the mourning, and I spoke in it, and a great people attended, and the elegies were made in it. And among the wonders: we were, after the mourning ended on Saturday, at his grave, and behold my maternal uncle Muhyi ad-Din had come up from the shore, and behind him a coffin. We said: we see who has died. And it was a woman, the mother of Muhyi ad-Din, and my covenant with her was the night of my grandfather's death, in safety. The people counted this among his wonders, for she had been tempted by it."

"And his grandfather bequeathed that be written upon his grave:

O much of pardon toward whom
Sins were many at his side:
There came to you the offender, hoping
The pardon of the faults of his hands.
I am a guest: and the reward
Of the guest is goodness unto him.

Abd al-Hafiz ibn Badran informed us: the imam Mouwaffaq ad-Din Abdallah ibn Ahmad informed us: Abou al-Faraj Abd ar-Rahman ibn Ali informed us: Yahya ibn Thabit informed us: my father informed us: Abou Bakr al-Barqani informed us: Ahmad ibn Ibrahim informed us: Ibn Abd al-Karim the weigher informed us: al-Hasan ibn Ali al-Azdi related to us: Ali ibn al-Madini related to me: Ahmad ibn Hanbal related to me: Ali ibn Ayyach al-Himsi related to me: Chou'ayb ibn Abi Hamza related to me, from Muhammad ibn al-Mounkadir, from Jabir, who said:

The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said: "Whoever, hearing the call, says: O Allah, Lord of this perfect call, and the prayer established, grant Muhammad the access and the eminence, and raise him to the praised station You promised him: intercession is granted to him."

And he informed us, at elevated degrees: Abd ar-Rahman ibn Muhammad informed: Umar ibn Tabarzad informed: Hibbatallah ibn al-Housseyn informed: Muhammad ibn Muhammad informed: Abou Bakr ach-Chafi'i informed: Ibrahim ibn al-Haytham al-Baladi related: Ali ibn Ayyach related the like of it, but he added in it: "except that intercession is granted to him on the Day of Resurrection." So it seems my sheikh heard it from Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Isma'ili the jurist.

And Abou Bakr ibn Tourkhan wrote to me: the imam Mouwaffaq ad-Din informed us, saying:

"Ibn al-Jawzi was the imam of the people of his era in preaching, and he composed in the branches of knowledge fine works, and he was a man of arts: he composed in fiqh, and taught, and was a hafiz of hadith. Only, we were not pleased with his compositions in the Sunna, nor his way in it; and the common people exalted him, and at times there slipped from him at moments words that were disapproved in him in the Sunna: he would be questioned upon them, and his breast would tighten for them."

The hafiz Sayf ad-Din Ibn al-Majd said: "He was of very great supposition: for in his 'Maschkaykha', small though it be, there are illusions. He said in a hadith: al-Boukhari extracted it, from Muhammad ibn al-Mouthanna, from al-Fadl ibn Hicham, from al-A'mach, whereas it is: from al-Fadl ibn Moussawir, from Abou Awana, from al-A'mach."

"And he said in another: al-Boukhari extracted it, from Abdallah ibn Mounir, from Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abdallah ibn Dinar, and between the two is Abou an-Nadr, whom he dropped."

"And he said in a hadith: Abou al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Athram informed us, whereas it is Muhammad ibn Ahmad."

"And he said in another: al-Boukhari extracted it, from al-Ouwaysi, from Ibrahim, from az-Zouhri, whereas it is: from Ibrahim ibn Sa'd, from Salih, from az-Zouhri."

"And he said in another: Qoutayba related to us: Khalid ibn Isma'il related to us, whereas it is: Hatim related to us."

"And in another: Abou al-Fath Muhammad ibn Ali al-Ouchari related to us, whereas it is: Abou Talib."

"And he said: Houmayd ibn Hilal, from Affane ibn Kahil, whereas it is: Hissane ibn Kahil."

"And he said: al-Boukhari extracted it, from Ahmad ibn Abi Iyas, whereas it is: Adam."

"And in the death of Yahya ibn Thabit, of Ibn Khudayr, and of Ibn al-Mouqarrab, he mentions what he was contradicted in."

I say: these are enormous vices in two fascicules.

As-Sayf said: "I heard Ibn Nouqta say: Ibn al-Akhdar was told: do you not answer of some of the illusions of Ibn al-Jawzi? He said: it is upon him whose error is rare that one enquires: as for this one, his illusions are many."

Then as-Sayf said: "I saw no one to be relied upon in his religion, his knowledge, and his intelligence, content with him."

I say: if Allah is content with him, they count not.

He said: "My grandfather said: Abou al-Mouzaffar ibn Hammadi reproached Abou al-Faraj often with words in which he diverged from the Sunna."

As-Sayf said: "Abou al-Fath Ibn al-Manni reproached him in things; and when his confusion became clear at the last, the eminent of our companions and of his companions turned from him."

"And Abou Ishaq al-Oulthi corresponded with him and disapproved of him."

Mahfouz ibn Ma'touq ibn al-Bouzouri informed me in his "Chronicle", in the notice of Ibn al-Jawzi, saying:

"He became in his madhhab an imam pointed to, and the signet of the age knotted upon him. He taught in the school of Ibn ach-Chammas, and in the school of the gate in Nafcha, and in the school of the sheikh Abd al-Qadir, and built for himself a school in the lane of Dinar. He made waqf [...]