Ibn ʿAllān reported to us; al-Kindī reported to us; al-Shaybānī reported to us; al-Khaṭīb reported to us; Abū al-ʿAlāʾ the judge reported to us; Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Tamīmī reported to us; Abū ʿAlī the grammarian narrated to us; al-Fusṭāṭī narrated and said:

Abū ʿUbayd was staying with Ibn Ṭāhir. Abū Dulaf sent him thirty thousand dirhams, but he would not accept them, saying, “I am in the care of a man whose support leaves me in no need of anyone else’s gift, and I will not take anything that would lessen my dignity.”

When Ibn Ṭāhir returned, he presented him with thirty thousand dinars. Abū ʿUbayd said to him, “O Emir, I have accepted it; yet your generosity and kindness have already made me independent of it. I have therefore resolved to purchase weapons and horses with the sum and dispatch them to the frontier, so that the reward may accrue in full to the Emir.” And that is what he did. (1)

ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sukkarī said: Aḥmad ibn Yūsuf—whether I heard it directly from him, or it was related to me on his authority—said:

“When Abū ʿUbayd completed his book Gharīb al-Ḥadīth, it was shown to ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭāhir. He admired it and remarked, ‘A mind that has driven its owner to produce a work like this surely deserves not to be troubled with earning a livelihood.’”

He therefore assigned him a stipend of ten thousand dirhams each month. Such is the wording in this narration: ten thousand dirhams. (2)

Another report with the same purport is transmitted from al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāmah, who said: “When Abū ʿUbayd’s Gharīb was brought to Ibn Ṭāhir, he said, ‘This is an intelligent man,’ and he wrote to Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm, instructing him to grant him a monthly allowance of five hundred dirhams. When Ibn Ṭāhir passed away,”