from all that it is permissible to transmit on their authority.’ They granted the request graciously in Jumada I of the year 538 AH.

He (Abū al-Fatḥ) said: A diagonal stroke ran across the date, and the shaykhs wrote, “I have authorized them—may Allah perpetuate their honour—for whatever they have asked leave to relate.” Wajīh ibn Ṭāhir likewise wrote, “I authorize them,” as did al-Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Shahhāmī. Abū al-Fatḥ listed the remainder of the signatories and then said:

I have seen the handwriting of the notable Sharaf al-Dīn ibn al-Tītī, namely ʿAbd al-Khāliq al-Nishtabri, known as “the ḥāfiẓ.” He was a jurist and an accomplished man of letters, possessed of a ready mind and refined wit, and he had memorised a large corpus of Arab poetry. In Iraq he heard Ibn Shātil, and he likewise attended audition sessions in Damascus, Egypt, and many other lands. Both I and my son Muḥammad received traditions from him. He transmitted the Jāmiʿ of al-Tirmidhī from al-Karūkhī by ijāza. Then he said, “ʿAbd al-Khāliq narrated to us,” and that was the first hadith I heard from him… He proceeded to quote the hadith, but added one narrator to its chain, inserting him between Zāhir and the muʾadhdhin.

He went on: He heard from al-Hāzimī the book al-Nāsikh wa-l-Mansūkh, and from Ibn Kulayb he received an audition of Adab al-Kātib by Abū Manṣūr al-Kātib—everything except the preface, which he took from Abū al-Qāsim al-Tanūkhī. He also heard from Durra bint ʿUthmān on the authority of Ibn al-Ṭabr; from Aḥmad, son of the Khatīb of Mosul; from Tughdī al-Amīrī; and from al-Khushūʿī, from whom he received al-Maqāmāt and the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd. In addition, he studied under Manṣūr ibn Abī al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabarī, Muslim ibn ʿAlī al-Sīḥī (1) the witness, Abū al-Qāsim ibn Shadqinī, and ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd al-Ghanī (2) ibn ʿAlyān,