He possessed unrivalled powers of memorisation and precision, and he upheld the disciplines of hadith with distinction (1).

Al-Hafiz Ibn ʿAsakir said: “I heard al-Husayn ibn Muhammad relate—on the authority of Ibn Khayrun, or someone else—that al-Khatib recounted: When he performed the pilgrimage, he drank three draughts of Zamzam water and asked Allah for three things: that he might teach his History of Baghdad, that he might dictate hadith in the Mansur Mosque, and that he might be buried beside Bishr al-Hafi. All three requests were granted to him (2).”

Ghayth ibn ʿAli reported: “Abu al-Faraj al-Isfarayini told us: ‘Al-Khatib was with us on the pilgrimage. Each day he completed a full, measured recitation of the Qur’an. Then people would gather round him while he was still mounted, saying, “Narrate to us,” whereupon he would relate hadith to them’—or words to that effect (3).”

Al-Mu’taman said: “I heard ʿAbd al-Muhsin al-Shihi say: ‘I travelled side by side (4) with Abu Bakr al-Khatib from Damascus to Baghdad, and he would finish one complete reading of the Qur’an every twenty-four hours (5).’”

Al-Khatib wrote, in his biographical entry on Ismaʿil ibn Ahmad al-Naysaburi the Blind (6): “He performed the pilgrimage and transmitted hadith; an excellent shaykh he was. When he set out for Hajj he carried with him a load of books with which to stay near the Sacred Precinct, among them Sahih al-Bukhari, which he had heard from al-Kushmayhani. I read the entire work to him in three