Taqi al-Din al-Wasiti, Syria's blessing

Taqi al-Din Ibn al-Wasiti, shaykh al-Islam, the blessing of Syria and pole of the age. He travelled seeking hadith and heard at Baghdad, Mosul, Aleppo and Harran; he taught at the Sahiba on Qasyun for some twenty years, and in his last days held the shaykhate of the Zahiriyya dar al-hadith. ¹

Ibn al-Zamlakani said of him: extreme in denouncing wrong, caring not whom he denounced, calling to the creed of the Sunnis and the righteous Salaf. Al-Barzali said: he was unrivalled in lofty isnad, abundance of transmissions and worship — he left none like him. ¹