and in Isfahan, Hamadhan, Rayy, the Hijaz, and Nishapur.

He appointed Abū Bakr ibn Khalaf (1) the littérateur—and, after him, other assistants—to serve as his public reader. For his own use he also compiled the ʿawālī (high-chain collections) of Mālik, the ʿawālī of Ibn ʿUyaynah, whatever portions of the ʿawālī of Ibn Khuzaymah had reached him—amounting to more than thirty fascicles—the ʿawālī of al-Sarrāj (2), the ʿawālī of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Bishr (3), and the ʿawālī of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Hāshim (4), together with Tuḥfatay al-ʿĪdayn and his own Mashyakha (catalogue of shaykhs). Altogether he conducted nearly one thousand dictation sessions, and he never tired of having traditions read aloud.

Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī said: “He was exceedingly prolific and alert. He came to us in Marw expressly to transmit hadith there, and he travelled with me to Isfahan with no other occupation than narration. People crowded around him. He knew the separate fascicles, collected and copied them, and lived to an advanced age.

“I read to him The History of Nishapur in only a few days, spending the entire day reciting it. He honoured strangers and would lend them his fascicles, yet on the journey with me to Isfahan he openly neglected the prescribed prayers. His brother Wajīh said to me: ‘So-and-so, do your utmost to make him stop and pray, lest he be exposed for abandoning the prayer.’

“Events unfolded exactly as Wajīh had warned, and the people of Isfahan became aware of it.”