—and he roundly condemned it, saying (1): “The ḥadīth scholar practices jarḥ and taʿdīl—can you not, sir, tell the difference between principled criticism and mere backbiting?!”

He then added: “Yet he himself has relied on Ibn Nāṣir’s statements in many of the biographical entries of his own Dhayl.”

After that Ibn al-Jawzī exaggerated in disparaging Abū Saʿd, accusing him of a lukewarm partisanship against the Hanbalis. For my part, I never found Abū Saʿd to be so. Admittedly, Ibn Nāṣir is sometimes overzealous in belittling a number of shaykhs, whereas Abū Saʿd is more knowledgeable in history and has a better memory than either Ibn al-Jawzī or Ibn Nāṣir. This, in fact, is what he himself says about Ibn Nāṣir in the Dhayl:

“He is trustworthy, a ḥāfiẓ, devout, precise, firmly grounded, a linguist, well-versed in both texts and chains, devoted to abundant prayer and recitation. His only flaw is that he enjoys finding fault with people. His reading and transmission are sound, and his first audition was in the year 73 with Abū Ṭāhir al-Anbārī. (2)”

Ibn al-Najjār says in his History: “He was reliable, unwavering, of excellent conduct, devout, poor yet dignified, clean, and scrupulous. He endowed his books as waqf and left behind only some worn garments and three dinars; he had no heirs. I heard Ibn Sukaynah, Ibn al-Akhḍar, and others lavish praise upon him, describing him as possessing remarkable memorization, exactitude, piety, and diligence in maintaining the sunnah and supererogatory acts.

“I also heard a number of my teachers relate that he and Ibn al-Jawālīqī used to study adab with Abū Zakariyyā al-Tibrīzī while at the same time pursuing ḥadīth. People would say, ‘Ibn Nāṣir will emerge as Baghdad’s linguist, and Abū Manṣūr Ibn al-Jawālīqī as its ḥadīth scholar.’ But matters turned out the other way around, and the roles were reversed. (3) …”

I say: Ibn Nāṣir was himself among the foremost authorities in language as well.