Ibn al-Dubaythī (1) said: “His auditions were sound, though not free of confusion. He travelled to al-Shām, and on the way he narrated in Irbil, Mosul, Ḥarrān, Aleppo, and Damascus. He then returned to Baghdad and taught there. I compiled for him a mashyakha—a register of teachers—drawn from eighty-three shaykhs, and he related it on several occasions. He also dictated sessions in the Manṣūr Mosque. He lived for 90 years and 7 months.”

I say: By speaking of “confusion,” Ibn al-Dubaythī is hinting that Ibn Ṭabrazad’s brother was weak, and that most of ʿUmar’s auditions were read by that brother; one still has reservations about this.

Abū Shāmah (2) said: “Ibn Ṭabrazad died—he was a licentious, frivolous man. After Hanbal (3) he journeyed to Syria and acquired money through hadith, while Hanbal returned and went into trade with what he had gained. Ibn Ṭabrazad followed his example, investing in paper and ʿattābī cloth. He grew ill for a time and died, and the wealth he had amassed reverted to the public treasury, just as Hanbal’s had.”

Ibn al-Najjār (4) said: “He was the last to narrate from Ibn al-Ḥuṣayn, Ibn al-Bannāʾ, Ibn Mulūk, Hibat Allah al-Wāsiṭī, Ibn al-Zāghūnī, and Abū Bakr and ʿUmar, the two sons of Aḥmad ibn Duḥrūj, as well as ʿAlī ibn Ṭirād. He was summoned from Syria, so he went there and stayed in Damascus for a long spell, amassing a respectable fortune, then returned to Baghdad and kept on teaching—I heard a great deal from him. He knew his shaykhs and could list his auditions, and the originals were in his possession, most of them in his brother’s hand. He tutored boys, possessed a fine handwriting, yet he understood nothing of scholarship and was careless about religious matters: I saw him more than once urinating while standing,