Shihab al-Din Ibn 'Arabshah

Shihab al-Din Ibn ʿArabshah al-Dimashqi al-Hanafi, an imam, scholar, polymath, accurate, man of letters, jurist, philologist, grammarian and historian. He was the leading figure of his age in verse and prose. He came to Cairo more than once. He had a firm companionship and friendship with Ibn Taghribirdi, and he recited to him many of his works in verse and prose, indeed most of what he had composed and written. He had the ability to put sciences into verse and to shape them in the form of praise and love poetry. Ibn Taghribirdi gave him a licence to transmit all that he was permitted to transmit, among it "Mir'at al-Adab" on the sciences of meaning and eloquence. Ibn Taghribirdi said, "He accompanied me during some of his visits to Cairo, and he wrote my licence in his own hand."

He died in 854 AH ¹.