one day and break his fast the next, a routine he had kept up for fifty years.

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī said, “We used to profit from Ghundar’s notebooks even while Shuʿbah was still alive.”

It was also said that Ghundar traded in ṭayālisah (1) and in karābīs (2); he was counted among the finest of the hadith scholars and among the most precise of them.

Others alleged that he was somewhat simple-minded.

Ḥusayn ibn Manṣūr al-Naysābūrī relates: “I heard ʿAlī ibn ʿAththam say, ‘I came to Ghundar …’—he then spoke of the man’s merit and of his expertise in Shuʿbah’s narrations—‘and he said to me, “Bring your notebook.”

“I refused unless he would first produce his own, so he brought it out and said, ‘People claim that I once bought some fish, that they ate it, smeared my hand with it while I was asleep, and when I awoke and asked for it they said, “You already ate—just smell your hand!” Would my stomach not have told me if I had really eaten?’ ”

Ibn ʿAththam then remarked, “He was guileless.”

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī said, “With respect to Shuʿbah, he is dearer to me than ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī.”

Ibn Mahdī himself said, “In matters related to Shuʿbah, Ghundar is more accurate than I.”

Salamah ibn Sulaymān transmitted from Ibn al-Mubārak that he said, “Whenever people disagree about a hadith of Shuʿbah, Ghundar’s book is the arbiter between them.”

Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī observed, “Ghundar was truthful and dutiful; in narrations from Shuʿbah he is reliable, whereas in narrations from others his hadith may be written down but is not to be taken as conclusive proof.”