to Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal the hadith of Zayd ibn Thābit regarding the sale of fruit (1). It delighted him and he asked me for another of the same calibre, so I replied, “And where am I to find one like it?!”

Ṣāliḥ ibn Muḥammad Jazrah the ḥāfiẓ said, “I once attended the session of Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ and he declared: ‘It is impermissible for any innovator or wanton person to sit in my gathering.’ I responded, ‘As for the wanton one—that would be me,’ for someone had told him, ‘Ṣāliḥ the wanton fellow has come to your circle.’

Al-Ḥākim reported: Abū Ḥāmid al-Sayyārī narrated to us; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Dāwūd al-Rāzī narrated to us; I heard Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī say:

“I travelled to Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ. When I entered, we exchanged hadith memoranda until the time grew tight. Then I produced from my sleeve some notes containing several hadiths and asked him about them. He said to me, ‘Come back.’

“I returned the next day with a group of hadith scholars. Again I took out the notes and questioned him, and again he said, ‘Come back.’

“So I said, ‘Did you not tell me yesterday, “What you have is not worth recording; present to me a hadith with a continuous chain, or a broken chain, or even a single word from which I may benefit; and if I have not already narrated that through someone more reliable than you, then I am not Abū Zurʿah”?’

“Then I stood up and said to our companions, ‘Who here is there from whom we can write?’ They answered, ‘Yaḥyā ibn Bukayr,’ so I went to him.”

Ibn ʿAdī said, “Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ had copied material from the books of Ḥarmalah, but Ḥarmalah barred him from them and gave him only half the collection. Thereafter, whenever someone who had studied under Ḥarmalah—and begun with him—arrived in Egypt, Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ would not relate hadith to him.

“Ibn ʿAdī also said: I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Salm al-Maqdisī say, ‘I came to Egypt and started with Ḥarmalah; I wrote from him the book of ʿAmr ibn al-Ḥārith, the book of Yūnus ibn Yazīd, and other selections. Then I went to Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ, but he would not narrate to me. So I took the book of Yūnus, tore it up in front of him to placate him—would that I had not torn it up—and yet he still did not…’