Salah al-Din Khalil al-Alai
A scholar of the Prophet's sayings, one of the few learned men of Jerusalem whom Ibn Battuta found still alive after the plague.
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Ibn Battuta, the Rihla (Travels), dictated in Fez about 1355 · 1348–1349 (dictated about 1355)
وصنع الخطيب عز الدين يوما دعوة ودعاني فيمن دعاه إليها، فسألته عن سببها؟ فأخبرني انه نذر أيام الوباء أنه إن ارتفع ذلك ومر عليه يوم لا يصلي فيه على ميت صنع الدعوة! ثم قال لي: ولما كان بالامس لم أصل على ميت فصنعت الدعوة التي نذرت!! ووجدت من كنت أعهده من جميع الأشياخ بالقدس قد انتقلوا إلى جوار الله تعالى رحمهم الله، فلم يبق منهم إلا القليل مثل المحدث العالم الإمام صلاح الدين خليل بن كيكلدي العلائي، ومثل الصالح شرف الدين الخشي شيخ زاوية المسجد الأقصى.
One day the preacher Izz al-Din gave a feast, and I was among the guests. I asked him what it was for. He told me that during the pestilence he had made a vow: if it lifted, and a day went by when he did not pray over a dead person, he would give a feast. Then he said to me, “Yesterday I did not pray over a single dead person, so I have given the feast I vowed!” I found that all the scholars I used to know in Jerusalem had gone to dwell near God, God have mercy on them. Only a few were left, such as the learned imam Salah al-Din Khalil ibn Kaykaldi al-Alai, a scholar of the Prophet’s sayings, and the pious Sharaf al-Din al-Khushshi, head of the Sufi lodge at al-Aqsa Mosque.