and that he had already outstripped the scholars in the year 353 AH. I was skeptical of such praise until I performed the pilgrimage in 367 AH, then came to Baghdad and remained there for more than four months. We met continually, night and day, and I found him to be even greater than Ibn Abī Dhuhl had portrayed. I questioned him about hidden defects and about the shaykhs, and he possesses authored works whose mere enumeration would be lengthy.

Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb said: Al-Dāraquṭnī was the unmatched scholar of his age, the champion of his era, peerless and unique, the imam of his time. The loftiest chains of transmission (1) and mastery of the subtle defects of hadith and the names of narrators culminated in him, together with honesty, reliability, sound creed, and proficiency in other sciences (2) beyond hadith. Among these is the science of Qurʾānic readings: he compiled a concise book, collecting the foundational principles and arranging them into chapters placed at the opening of the work. I heard some specialists in the readings say, “Abū al-Ḥasan was the first to employ this method, and the reciters after him have followed it.”

He was also well-versed in the legal schools, as his Sunan makes clear. I have been informed that he studied Shāfiʿī jurisprudence under Abū Saʿīd al-Iṣṭakharī—though some say under another teacher. He possessed, moreover, a deep knowledge of literature and poetry. Ḥamzah ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir told me that al-Dāraquṭnī had memorized the Dīwān of al-Sayyid al-Ḥimyārī, and because of this he was (3) accused of Shiʿite leanings.

Abū al-Fatḥ ibn Abī al-Fawāris said: “We used to visit al-Baghawī, and al-Dāraquṭnī, still a young boy, would walk behind us holding a loaf of bread spread with kāmakh (4).”