of the water-wheels for the cattle, supervising their fodder. On one occasion he wrote to the caliph al-Mustazhir billah: “The servant, Ibn al-Baqar, supervisor of al-Baṭr.” The caliph burst out laughing at his foolish blunder.

Al-Silafī said: I entered Baghdad on the twenty-fourth of Shawwāl and hurried straight to Ibn al-Baṭir. I was admitted to him, and he was hard-hearted. I said, “I have come from Isfahan for your sake.” He replied, “Read,” pronouncing the rāʾ like a ghayn. I recited while reclining because of the boils that afflicted me. He exclaimed, “Look at that dog!” I excused myself on account of the boils and wept at his words, yet I read 27 hadiths and then left. I kept returning to him and, in all, read 25 fascicles, but he was nothing remarkable.

Al-Samʿānī said: Ibn al-Baṭir lived at the Gate of al-Ghurabah (1), by the river landing (2) next to the Badriyyah quarter. He lived to such an advanced age that people journeyed to him from distant regions and students gathered around him in great numbers. He was upright and truthful, and his auditions were sound. He was the last person to transmit from Ibn al-Bayyiʿ, Ibn Rizqawayh, and Ibn Bishrān.

He died on the sixteenth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal in the year 494 AH, at the age of 96.

Bilāl al-Mughīthī al-Ṭawwāshī (3) conveyed to us a fascicle that contains al-Ājurī’s narration of the ḥadith of the Slander.