He likewise sent off ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿUshr, and with us he dispatched al-Ṭabarānī’s al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr, al-Bukhārī’s collection, and the Sīra (the Prophetic biography). He wrote to Zayn al-Dīn ʿAlī ibn Najā commending us to his care, and he sent Ibn Ẓafar to Isfahan, supplying him generously; such was always his way.

Al-Ḍiyāʾ relates: When we entered Isfahan on my second journey we were seven in all, one of whom was the jurist Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, the ḥāfiẓ’s son, who was still a child. We sat with the shaykhs and auditioned hadith from them. Al-Muʾayyad ibn al-Ikhwah possessed a substantial body of narrations, but he was strict with us; then he died, and I was deeply pained. What troubled me most were three books: the Musnad of al-ʿAdanī, the Muʿjam of Ibn al-Maqriʾ, and the Musnad of Abū Yaʿlā(1). I had already heard the Musnad of al-ʿAdanī from him on the first trip, but that was only for the sake of my companions.

I then saw in a dream that the ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Ghanī was holding a man fast while saying to me, “Go to this one’s mother—go to this one’s mother.” That man proved to be the son of ʿĀʾishah bint Maʿmar. When I awoke I said, “This must be for a reason,” and it occurred to me that he was pointing me toward hadith. I therefore went to the house of the Banū Maʿmar, searched through their books, and found the Musnad of al-ʿAdanī bearing an audition by ʿĀʾishah identical to that of Ibn al-Ikhwah. When we read it before her, one of those present said, “She also heard the Muʿjam of Ibn al-Maqriʾ.” We obtained a copy from a baker and read it, and a few days later one of the brothers handed me the Musnad of Abū Yaʿlā(2) with her audition, so we read that as well.