and about him he writes in Tārīkh al-Islām: “With him I opened my hadith auditions in the Egyptian lands, and with him I concluded them; at his residence I lodged, and upon his volumes I relied. ʿIlm al-Dīn—that is, al-Barzalī—also listened to more than two hundred fascicles from him. (1)”

In the entry on him in Muʿjam Shuyūkhihi he adds: “I bade him farewell in Dhū al-Qaʿda of the year ninety-five, whereupon he said to me, ‘Tell the brethren to absolve me….’ (2)

It was therefore only natural that Imām al-Dhahabī should return in Dhū al-Qaʿda of that year, for he had promised his father—and sworn to him—that he would not remain on the journey for more than four months; he feared that any delay would amount to filial disobedience. (3)

Ibn al-Ẓāhirī died later, in Rabīʿ 696 AH. (4)

Al-Dhahabī’s biographers state that he heard hadith from the ḥāfiẓ Ibn al-Ẓāhirī,(5) so how can it be claimed that his journey took place after 697 AH?!

Subsequently, while in Egypt, he auditioned from a large number of scholars, the most renowned among them being: the musnid of the age, Abū al-Maʿālī Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq ibn Muḥammad al-Abrāquhī (6)—who died in 701 AH—(7) and Shaykh al-Islām, the independent mujtahid and Chief Judge Taqī al-Dīn Abū al-Fatḥ Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, known as Ibn