Isḥāq went on paying it from his own purse, and when Abū ʿUbayd died in Mecca he continued the stipend for his children. (1)
The notice of Ibn Ṭāhir’s death at this point is an error, for he lived on for some time after Abū ʿUbayd. (2)
Abū ʿUbayd himself used to say, “I spent forty years compiling this book; (3) sometimes I would collect a single useful point from the lips of men, insert it into the work, and then lie awake the whole night, delighted with that benefit. Yet one of you comes to me, stays four or five months, and then says, ‘I have stayed a long time.’” (4)
It was also said that the first person to study the Gharīb with Abū ʿUbayd was Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn. (5)
Al-Ṭabarānī said: “I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad say, ‘I presented the book Gharīb al-Ḥadīth by Abū ʿUbayd to my father, and he admired it and said, “May Allah reward him well.”’” (6)
Ibn al-Anbārī related, on the authority of Mūsā ibn Muḥammad, that he heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad say, “My father copied out, in its entirety, the Gharīb al-Ḥadīth that Abū ʿUbayd had composed in the first place.” (7)
ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Sayyār said: “I heard Ibn ʿArʿarah say, ‘Ṭāhir ibn ʿAbd Allāh was in Baghdad and hoped to hear from Abū ʿUbayd, hoping that he would come to him in…’”