Al-Bāji reported: my father told us that the jurist Abū ʿImrān al-Fāsī (1) once set out for Mecca. He had already read a portion of study to Abū Dharr, and happened to meet him in al-Sarāh, the district where he lived. He said to the keeper of the shaykh’s library, “Bring me some of his books so that I may copy from them while he is away; when he returns, I shall read what I have written back to him.”
The keeper answered, “I dare not do that, but here are the keys; if you wish, take them yourself and do as you please.” So Abū ʿImrān took the keys, withdrew whatever manuscripts he wanted, and began copying. News of this reached Abū Dharr in al-Sarāh; he mounted, hurried to Mecca, reclaimed his books, and swore that he would never relate hadith to Abū ʿImrān again.
I have been informed that thereafter, whenever Abū ʿImrān transmitted from Abū Dharr he concealed his name, saying instead, “Abū ʿĪsā narrated to us.” That, in fact, was the kunya by which the Arabs used to refer to him, after his son. (2)
I add: Abū ʿImrān al-Fāsī actually died before Abū Dharr. He had met Qāḍī Ibn al-Bāqillānī and the leading scholars of his time, so there was no real cause for Abū Dharr’s agitation; the anecdote merely shows the impetuousness of both shaykh and pupil—may Allah have mercy on them both.
His son, Abū Maktūm, would come on pilgrimage from al-Sarāh and continue teaching until a certain Murābiṭ prince from the Maghrib arrived. The prince settled nearby, heard the Ṣaḥīḥ of al-Bukhārī from Abū Maktūm, gave him fine gold, and Abū Maktūm in return sold him a copy of the Ṣaḥīḥ, which the prince carried back to the Maghrib.
Abū Maktūm performed the pilgrimage in 497 AH, when he was a little over eighty. In that same year Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī and Abū Bakr al-Samʿānī also made the Hajj, and the three met together at the standing-place. Al-Samʿānī said to al-Silafī, “Come, let us go and hear from him.” Al-Silafī replied, “Let us busy ourselves with supplication instead, and install him as the shaykh of Mecca.”
It so happened that Abū Maktūm left Minā with the people of al-Sarāh at the first dispersal, and the two of them missed the chance to study with him. Al-Silafī said, “Ibn al-Samʿānī reproached me, whereupon I told him, ‘You have already heard the Ṣaḥīḥ just as he has.’”