he set out in pursuit of ʿAbd al-Ghanī, intent on putting an end to him, so ʿAbd al-Ghanī went into hiding.

I heard Maḥmūd ibn Salāmah say, “We drove the ḥāfiẓ out of Isfahan with nothing on but an izār (a simple waist-cloth). The reason was that the Khujandī household were Ashʿarīs, fiercely loyal to Abū Nuʿaym, and they were the leading family of the city.”

I also heard the ḥāfiẓ say, “We were in Mosul studying al-ʿUqaylī’s al-Ḍuʿafāʾ when the townspeople seized me, imprisoned me, and wanted to kill me because of something mentioned in it (1). A tall man came to me carrying a sword, and I said, ‘He will kill me and I shall find relief.’ He did nothing, however, and they later released me. Ibn al-Barni the preacher (2) had been listening with me; he tore out the quire that contained that passage. They sent men to search the book but found nothing, and that was the reason for my escape.”

He added, “The ḥāfiẓ used to read hadith in Damascus, and crowds gathered around him. Envy took root, so they arranged their own time for hadith recitation and summoned the people. Yet one of them would fall asleep, another had no heart in it (3), and they gained no satisfaction; so they ordered al-Nāṣiḥ Ibn al-Ḥanbalī (4)…"