Abu Bakr ibn Abd al-Baqi

Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Baqi al-Ansari, qadi of the maristan; his grandfather was 'Amr ibn Ka'b ibn Malik al-Ansari. He heard much and presented hadith with isnads; al-'Allaf wrote in his 'Umrani history "I never saw his like — jealous for truth, speaking nothing else"; he was a Shafi'i jurist and prolific poet who, by his own account, had worked through four copies on arithmetic and geometry. ²

He related that his mother bought a pearl necklace for two thousand dinars and he said no two pearls in it were worth a hundred dirhams — examined, it proved exactly so — and he was tested with the Book of Optics and the Jewelers' Manual until people deferred to him in those sciences. Born on 10 Safar 442, he died on Friday 2 Rajab 535, aged ninety-three. ²