Minhal, and he answered, “In the eyes of the people Abū al-Walīd is the senior.”
People used to say, “There is some weakness in his audition from Ḥammād ibn Salamah; it seems (1) that he only heard from him late on, and Ḥammād’s memory had declined toward the end of his life (2).”
Abū Ḥātim also said, “Never have I seen, after his, a book more accurate than his.” (3)
Muḥammad ibn Salamah ibn ʿUthmān narrated, on the authority of Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Ziyādī, who said:
“I reached Basra while the people were saying, ‘No one in Basra is more intelligent than Abū al-Walīd; next after him is Abū Bakr ibn Khallād.’” (4)
Abū Bakr ibn Abī al-Dunyā narrated, on the authority of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Ḥammād, who said:
“A man sought permission to visit Abū al-Walīd al-Ṭayālisī. He laid his head on a pillow and then told the servant-girl, ‘Say to him: he has only just put his head down.’” (5)
Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, al-Bukhārī, and others stated that Abū al-Walīd died in 227 AH. (6)
Al-Bukhārī specified: in Rabīʿ al-Ākhir. (7)
Others said: in Ṣafar of that same year. (8)
I read this before Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allāh in Shawwāl of the year 593 AH; ʿAbd al-Muʿizz ibn Muḥammad related it to you, Zāhir ibn Ṭāhir informed us