the blood has surfaced in his eyes from the intensity of his pondering, and a man in such a state survives no longer than that.”
The Caliph then asked him, “What do you desire?”
He answered, “Mosul.”
So the Caliph granted it to him. He set out for the city and died within the predicted span.
This whole anecdote, however, is unreliable. As for the verse, it needs no apology whatsoever, and he never governed Mosul. True, he did oversee its postal service, as noted earlier.
27 – Abū Maʿmar al-Hudhalī, Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ⦗1⦘ (Kh, M, D)
The Imām, the great ḥāfiẓ, the firmly reliable Abū Maʿmar Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Maʿmar ibn al-Ḥasan al-Hudhalī, originally of Herat and later of Baghdad, resident of the Qaṭīʿa quarter.
He was born in the early 150s AH.
He studied under Sharīk the judge, Ismāʿīl ibn Jaʿfar, Khalaf ibn Khalīfa, ʿAlī ibn Hāshim ibn al-Barīd, Hushaym, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Marwān ibn Shujāʿ, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAyyāsh and many others.
Among those who narrated from him are al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, Abū Zurʿa, and Abū Ḥātim,
(*) Ibn Saʿd, al-Tabaqat, vol. 7, p. 359; al-Bukhari, al-Tarikh al-Kabir, vol. 1, p. 342; idem, al-Tarikh al-Saghir, vol. 2, p. 366; Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Jarh wa-l-Taʿdil, vol. 2, p. 157; al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Tarikh Baghdad, vol. 6, pp. 266, 272; al-Mizzi, Tahdhib al-Kamal, fol. 97; al-Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, vol. 2, p. 471; Ibn Hajar, al-ʿIbar, vol. 1, p. 423; al-Dhahabi, Mizan al-Iʿtidal, vol. 1, p. 220; Ibn Hajar, Tadhhib al-Tahdhib, vol. 1, p. 61; idem, Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, vol. 1, pp. 273–274; al-Dhahabi, Tabaqat al-Huffaz, p. 205; Ibn ʿAbd al-Hadi, Khulasat Tadhhib al-Kamal, p. 32; Ibn al-ʿImad, Shadharat al-Dhahab, vol. 2, p. 86.
(1) In the introduction to his edited version of Ibn Saʿd’s al-Tabaqat al-Kubra, Dr Ihsan ʿAbbas argues that Ibn Saʿd died in 230 AH. Yet the seventh volume contains biographies of Abu Muʿammar al-Hudhali (d. 236 AH), ʿAmr al-Naqid (d. 232 AH), and Sirij ibn Yunus (d. 235 AH), and even of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH). This makes it highly likely that these entries were added by a later transmitter of al-Tabaqat rather than by Ibn Saʿd himself.