Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Hakim said, “Ishaq, Ibn al-Mubarak, and Muhammad ibn Yahya—all of them buried their books.”
I say: A number of the great imams acted likewise, which shows that they did not consider it permissible to transmit knowledge merely by finding a manuscript (wijadah) (1); a text can be misread by the copyist, and one extra letter may slip in and change the meaning, and so on.
Today, however, the tear has widened: it is rare to acquire knowledge from the lips of scholars, or even from books that are free of errors, and some who transmit legal questions cannot so much as spell.
Al-Dulabi narrated: Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Rahuyah said, “My father was born in the year 163 AH.
“He died on the night of mid-Shaʿban in the year 238 AH.
“About him the poet said:
O thunder-clap that smote us on Sunday night—
On mid-Shaʿban, never to be forgotten (2) through all eternity!
Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Bukhari said, “He died on the night of mid-Shaʿban at the age of seventy-seven.”
Al-Khatib then remarked, “That indicates his birth was in the year 161 AH.”
A tidbit with no real benefit—we relate it only for diversion:
Abu ʿUbayd Muhammad ibn ʿAli al-Ājurri, author of The Questions of Abu Dawud—and I know of no one who has ever impugned him—said, “I heard Abu Dawud al-Sijistani say, ‘Ishaq ibn Rahuyah’s mind began to fail five months before his death. I heard from him during those days and discarded it.’”
I say: This report is objectionable. In the end, everyone suffers some ailment before his passing