they used to call him “al-Ghudāf”, and he kept a shield fitted with four (1) large iron studs. Whenever they seized someone they meant to kill they would cry, “Where is al-Ghudāf?”—whereupon he would appear and strike the man down, and with that very shield he killed more than one person (2).

Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim said, “I saw Abū al-Ḥasan Ibn Jawṣā rating him as weak” (3).

I say: Ibn Mākūlā stumbled badly when he asserted that he was born in 239 AH and died in 321 AH.

Al-Khaṭīb said, “It has reached me that he died in Ḥimṣ in 271 AH” (4).

ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Salāmah reported that Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf said, “Abū ʿUtbah al-Ḥijāzī is a liar. The books of Ḍamrah and Ibn Abī Fudayk that he holds are actually from the library of Aḥmad ibn al-Naḍr; they merely ended up with him. As for what he transmits from Baqiyyah, he possesses no primary source for it at all—he is the most mendacious of Allah’s creation.”

I add: The bulk of his narrations are straightforward, and the sound ruling about him is what Ibn ʿAdī stated—his material is cited even though he is weak.

Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān narrated to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qudāmah the jurist and al-Ḥusayn ibn Hibat Allāh likewise related, saying: ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Muḥammad informed us; ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn al-Muwaʾmmal, in person, informed us; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Naṣr informed us; Khaythamah ibn Sulaymān informed us; Abū ʿUtbah Aḥmad ibn al-Faraj narrated to us; Baqiyyah narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd ibn al-Sarī told me—through ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar—who said: