he (Ibn Tāhir) compiled the concordances of the Two Ṣaḥīḥs, as well as of Abū Dāwūd, Abū ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī and Ibn Mājah, yet in a number of places he fell into gross errors.

Ibn Nāṣir said: “He was prone to faulty grammar and to textual slips. On one occasion he recited, ‘wa-inna jabīnahu layatafaṣṣadu (1) ʿaraqan’—with a qāf; I corrected him, ‘with a fāʾ,’ but he stubbornly insisted (2).”

Al-Silafī remarked: “He was a man of merit and learning, but he made grammatical mistakes.” Al-Muʾtaman al-Sājī told me: “He would read aloud in the presence of the Shaykh al-Islām in Herat and would slip into solecisms, whereupon the shaykh would shake his head and say, ‘There is no power nor strength except with Allah.’”

Shīrawayh ibn Shahrdār wrote in his History of Hamadhān: “Ibn Tāhir settled in Hamadhān and built a house there. He journeyed to Syria, the Ḥijāz, Egypt, Iraq and Khurāsān, took notes from nearly all the scholars of his time and transmitted from them. He was trustworthy and truthful, a ḥāfiẓ, well-acquainted with sound and weak reports, knowledgeable about transmitters and the texts, prolific in writing, possessed fine handwriting, devoted to the prophetic tradition, far removed from frivolity and fanaticism, cheerful of spirit, tireless on the road, and frequent in Hajj and ʿUmrah. He died in Baghdad on his return from the pilgrimage.”

Ibn al-Najjār said: “I read, in the handwriting of Shujāʿ al-Dhuhlī: ‘Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Bazzāz informed me, saying, “Muḥammad ibn Tāhir ibn ʿAlī al-Maqdisī narrated to us, telling us…’”