Abu Ali al-Sharmaqani the muqri'

Al-Sharmaqani, the Baghdadi Qur'an-teacher — a man of Nasa who settled at Baghdad, among the memorisers of the Qur'an versed in the reciters' disagreements and the variants of the readings; he transmitted hadith from a circle and was truthful. ¹

It is related that he slid down to the Tigris in a famine year to eat what the companions threw away, so the ra'is al-ru'asa Ibn al-Muslima lifted him secretly: he ordered his servant to make a key to the mosque where al-Sharmaqani lodged in the Za'farani lane without telling him, and to carry to him daily three ratls of fine bread, a chicken, sweets and sugar; when al-Sharmaqani found it laid in the qibla with the door shut he said to himself "this is from Paradise, and it must be concealed — concealment is the condition of a saintly gift," until Ibn al-'Allaf pressed him and revealed it was Ibn al-Muslima — which soured his delight and the marks of his brokenness showed; he died in Safar 451. ¹