Abu Tahir al-Silafi

The great hafiz and polymath, musnid of the world and most long-lived of the memorisers, Abu Tahir al-Silafi Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Isbahani al-Harwani; he heard Abu 'Abdallah al-Thaqafi at Isfahan and compiled a mu'jam on them, travelled in the year three, met Abu'l-Khattab ibn al-Batr at Baghdad, studied fiqh under al-Kiya al-Harasi and Abu Bakr al-Shashi, compiled a mu'jam of Baghdad's shaykhs, then made hajj and heard at the two sanctuaries, Kufa, Basra, Hamadan, Zanjan, Rayy, Dinawar, Qazwin, Azerbaijan, Syria and Egypt — abundantly and well — mastering the Shafi'i school, letters and the Qur'anic readings. ²

He settled at Alexandria for some sixty-six years devoted to study, reading, copying and collecting books, and students heard from him for eighty years — "I know no one like him in this," says al-Dhahabi — passing a hundred years without doubt; he married a well-off Alexandrian woman and grew wealthy after poverty, and al-'Adil 'Ali ibn Aybak ibn al-Sallar built him a madrasa at Alexandria. He died at dawn on Friday 5 Rabi' al-Akhir 576. ²