had corrected him on more than one occasion.
Among those who transmitted from him was the ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb, by ijāzah. He then added, “Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥumaydī (1) also narrated to us from him.”
Al-Silafī says in his Mishyakhat al-Rāzī: “Al-Habbāl was a man deeply versed in ḥadith and the last pillar of this discipline in Egypt. He met a number of scholars in Mecca, and no one in his time amassed of ḥadith what he did.”
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khalaf al-Miskī said: “He was among the foremost, firmly reliable ḥuffāẓ. He compiled the collection of Abu Mūsā al-Zamin, and Abū Naṣr al-Sijzī selected one hundred fascicles from it.”
I say: rather, it was twenty fascicles, and the shaykhs from whom he heard exceed three hundred.
Ibn al-Mufaḍḍal said: “The leadership of scholarly travel ended with him, and with him this field was sealed in his region. The last person—so far as I know—who narrated from him, by ijāzah, was Abū al-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr al-Ḥaḍramī, who lived on until 554 AH.”
It is related that a traditionist once read to him and concluded, “May Allah be pleased with the shaykh, the ḥāfiẓ.” Al-Habbāl replied, “Say: ‘May Allah be pleased with you.’ The ḥāfiẓ is al-Dāraqutnī or ʿAbd al-Ghanī.”
Ibn Ṭāhir said: “I met al-Habbāl, and I have never seen anyone more precise than he—utterly reliable, trustworthy, a ḥāfiẓ.”
Al-Aʿazz ibn ʿAlī al-Ẓahīrī relates: Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Samarqandī told us, “Abū Isḥāq al-Habbāl wrote to us from Egypt, saying: ‘I authorize them to say, “So-and-so granted us ijāzah,” but they must not say, “He narrated to us,” or, “He informed us.”’” (2)
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥammūd al-Zāhid, in what al-Silafī quoted from him, said that he attended a gathering