and a tongue that flowed with effortless eloquence. He dictated a portion of his commentary on the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections, and despite his young age he produced many works. He died in Hamadhān in the year 526 AH, predeceasing his father. I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥasan say:

“We were sitting with Shaykh Abū ’l-Qāsim when he turned to the ḥadith master Abū Masʿūd and said, ‘May Allah prolong your life; you will live long, and you will never behold anyone the like of yourself.’ This, he added, was one of his miraculous signs (karāmāt) (1)….”

Ḥāfiẓ Abū Mūsā went on to say: “He produced a tafsīr in thirty volumes that he entitled al-Jāmiʿ; another tafsīr in four volumes; al-Muwaḍḍiḥ, a tafsīr in three volumes; Kitāb al-Muʿtamad in ten volumes; a single-volume work on the Sunnah; a large volume called Siyar al-Salaf (2); a volume on the Proofs of Prophethood; a volume on the Military Campaigns; and many other writings besides.”

Muḥammad ibn Nāṣir the ḥadith master said: “Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, the nephew of Ismāʿīl the ḥadith scholar, related to us, saying that Aḥmad al-Aswārī—the man who undertook the washing of my uncle’s body, and who was trustworthy—told me:

‘When he wished to remove the cloth from his private parts in order to wash him, Ismāʿīl seized it with his own hand and covered his nakedness.

The washer cried out, “Life after death?! (3)”’ ”

Abū Saʿd al-Samʿānī said: “Abū ’l-Qāsim was my teacher in ḥadith, and from him I acquired what knowledge I possess. He was an imām in tafsīr, ḥadith, language, and literature, thoroughly versed in texts and chains of transmission. Whenever I asked him about a difficult matter, he answered on the spot. Toward the end of his life he gave away most of his own source manuscripts, and he dictated from al-Jāmiʿ nearly three thousand sessions (4). My father used to say, ‘I never saw anyone in Iraq who both knows ḥadith and understands it except…’”