His kunyah is Abū'l-Ḥasan al-Muʿaddib. He became famous under the name al-Fālī and is the author of the work al-ʾAmālī. Fāl is the name of a village near Izbāʿ. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad resided for a time in Basra. There he heard ḥadīth from ʿUmar b. ʿAbdulwāḥid al-Ḥāshimī and others. Then he came to Baghdad and made it his homeland. He was a trustworthy (sikah) person in his own nafs, possessing many virtues. Let us present some examples from his beautiful poetry:
“When the faces among the teeth changed,
And the scholars I was accustomed to seeing before vanished,
When I saw the assemblies surrounded by different persons than before,
Who were from beginning to end awliyāʾ and leading figures.
Advancing, I read this couplet. At that moment my eyes were brightened with flowing water:
The tents are again like the tents of the former ones.
But I saw that the women of the neighborhood were other women.”
This poem also belongs to him:
“Every enthusiast and fool who takes the name of faqīh and mudarris
Has stepped forward to teach.
The learned people
Reciting in every assembly a widely known old couplet
Has, in my opinion, now become true:
“It has weakened, so much so that because of its weakness the grass was exposed.
And every bankrupt person ate that grass and was poisoned.”