that he neither slaughtered an animal nor ever lay with a woman.

I remarked, “People use the saying, ‘So-and-so neither married nor sacrificed.’”

He went on: “He was handsome and well dressed. He used to dye his beard, the color leaning toward yellow. He left behind thirteen dinars. Among the people he was one of the most prolific transmitters from Zāʾida ibn Qudāmah; indeed, Zāʾida would keep coming to his house just to hear ḥadith from him. Whenever Sufyān al-Thawrī met him, he would embrace him and say, ‘This man is a monk from the tribe of Juʿf.’ (1)

I add: He sat to teach Qur’an recitation; Ayyūb ibn al-Mutawakkil and others recited to him.

His narrations are found in the six canonical books of Islam and in the Musnad of Aḥmad. We possess his ḥadith with a high chain in the Musnad of ʿAbd (2) and in several other collections.

It is said that he was born in 119 AH and died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah of 203 AH, at the age of eighty-odd years.

Others who passed away that same year were: Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, the scholar of Kūfa; ʿAlī ibn Mūsā al-Riḍā the ʿAlawī; Abū Dāwūd al-Ḥafarī ʿUmar ibn Saʿd; Muḥammad ibn Bishr al-ʿAbdī; Zayd ibn Ḥubāb; Azhar ibn Saʿd al-Sammān; and al-Walīd ibn Mazīd al-ʿUdhri.

Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Munʿim al-Qazwīnī informed us more than once, transmitting from Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṣaydalanī in his general compilation.

Aḥmad ibn Salāmah likewise informed us, by authorization, from Khalīl ibn Badr and from Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Taymī. They said:

“Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād informed us; Abū Nuʿaym the ḥāfiẓ informed us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar informed us; he narrated to us: Abū—”