—for the public recitation of hadith, as the reliable authorities have informed us—and he then returned to Isfarayen in the year 399 AH (1).

I (the author) say: Among those who received the book from him were Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī, his wife Fāṭimah bint Abī ʿAlī al-Daqqāq—her audition contains some gaps (2)—ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd and ʿAbd Allāh, the two sons of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad al-Baḥīrī, and Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAlīk.

Most of the book—or perhaps all of it—was also transmitted from him by ʿUthmān ibn Muḥammad al-Maḥmī, Shabīb ibn Aḥmad al-Bastīghī (3), Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Juwaynī, ʿAlī ibn Mā-Sargis the treasurer, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Khashshāb, ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Bastāmī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Ḥassān ibn Muḥammad, Muḥammad ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Ṣarrām, and many others—the last of them to die was Abū Naṣr Muḥammad ibn Sahl al-Sarrāj, who passed away in 483 AH.

Abū ʿAwāna granted Abū Nuʿaym a comprehensive ijāzah (formal authorisation) for all his works in a document he composed as part of his will for him and for several others. He wrote: “I have authorised them to transmit all my books that I heard from all the shaykhs—among them the compilations of ʿAbd al-Razzāq, the works of Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, and the hadiths of Sufyān, Shuʿbah, Mālik, and al-Awzāʿī, as well as the tafsīr volumes and the Qur’an readings (qirāʾāt)—so that they may relate them from me by way of ijāzah, in Ramadan of the year 315 AH.”

When Abū ʿAwāna died, Abū Nuʿaym was six years and ten months old; he used to listen to him along with the other students and privately, night and day. Abū ʿAwāna would play with him and feed him fānidh (a kind of sugar confection) (4).