and its companion work al-Mukhtalif on the Names of Places).

He supplied complete chains of transmission for the ḥadiths cited in the Muhadhdhab. He was trustworthy, an unimpeachable authority, distinguished, ascetic, devoted to worship, scrupulous, and constant in retreat, writing, and disseminating knowledge. Death overtook him while he was still young. I heard the ḥadith master Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Ghānim say:

“Our teacher, the ḥadith scholar Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī, used to prefer Abū Bakr al-Ḥāzimī to ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī and would remark:

‘We have never seen a youth with a better memory than al-Ḥāzimī. His book on abrogating and abrogated reports alone bears witness to his leadership in jurisprudence and ḥadith; no one else has anything comparable.’”

Ibn al-Najjār said: I heard some of the senior scholars state that al-Ḥāzimī had memorised the book al-Ikmāl (1) on the muʾtalif, the mukhtalif, and ambiguous nisbas, and that he regularly rehearsed it. I also found, in the handwriting of the imam Abū al-Khayr al-Qazwīnī, a note in which he asks al-Ḥāzimī, “What does our master, the imam and ḥadith scholar, say about such-and-such?” to which Abū Bakr al-Ḥāzimī replied with the finest answer.

Ibn al-Najjār further said: I heard Abū al-Qāsim the Qurʾān-reciter, our neighbour—who was a righteous man—say:

“Al-Ḥāzimī—may Allah have mercy on him—was living in the Badiʿ ribāṭ. Each night he would retire to his room, read, and write until dawn.

The supervisor said to the servant, ‘Do not give him any sesame-oil for the lamp tonight; perhaps he will rest for a change.’

When darkness fell, the servant apologised to him for the lack of oil. He entered his room, stood with his feet together in prayer and recitation until daybreak. The shaykh went out to see how he was faring and found him still engaged in prayer.”

Abū Bakr al-Ḥāzimī died in Jumada al-Ūlā, in the year four and eighty and five—