Rayḥān; he castrated him, cutting away both testicles and the entire member. He then had a piper (1) brought in and ordered that the man’s cheek be pierced. al-Manṣūr became enraged with him; when the warning reached Ibn Diḥya he went into hiding and afterwards departed in disguise.

I add: He was among those who treated ijāza (written authorisation) leniently and would still use the formula “he narrated to us” for it.

Abū ʿAmr Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ heard the Muwaṭṭaʾ from him shortly after 600 AH. Ibn Diḥya conveyed the work to him through a number of intermediaries, among them Abū ʿAbdallāh Ibn Zarqūn, by virtue of the ijāza he had received from Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Khawlānī; we were told this in person by Abū ʿAmr al-Qishṭālī, who had himself heard it from Abū ʿĪsā Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh.

On another occasion Ibn Diḥya said: “The judge ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn al-Lawātī and Ibn Zarqūn related to me, saying: al-Khawlānī narrated to us.”

I have read, in the handwriting of the ḥāfiẓ ʿAlam al-Dīn al-Qāsim (2), that he had read in the handwriting of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ: “I heard the Muwaṭṭaʾ from the ḥāfiẓ Ibn Diḥya, and he transmitted it to us through a very large number of isnāds; the closest of them is the one he gave through the two jurists Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ḥunayn al-Kinānī and the ḥadith scholar Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Khalīl al-Qaysī, who both said: Muḥammad b. Faraj b. al-Ṭallāʿ and Abū Bakr Khāzim b. Muḥammad narrated to us, and they in turn said: Yūnus b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Mughīth narrated to us.”

Ibn al-Dhahabī remarked: “Ibn Diḥya never met those two men; at best his transmission from them is based on ijāza. They were in the lands beyond the Strait, not in al-Andalus: al-Qaysī was in Marrakesh, while Ibn Ḥunayn was in Fes. Later Maghribīs adopted the practice of using the phrase ‘he narrated to us’ for mere ijāza, and this is tadlīs (a deceptive convention).”