I said: He was thoroughly acquainted with Ibn Abī Shaybah’s compilations, having stayed with him for a considerable period.

Abū Bakr al-Khallāl said: I heard al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar, the jurist, relate:

‘Two shaykhs from Khurasan came for the pilgrimage (1). They delivered narrations, and when they departed a group of ḥadīth students pursued one of them.

They all went out—meaning into the open plain—so this shaykh sat down in one spot with a crowd and a recorder, the other did likewise a little way off, and Abū Bakr al-Athram seated himself between the two, writing down whatever this one dictated and whatever that one dictated (2).’

He also told me that ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad said: ‘I heard Saʿīd ibn ʿAttāb say: I heard Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn remark, “One of al-Athram’s parents must have been a jinn” (3).’

Abū Bakr ibn Ṣadaqah likewise informed me: Ibrāhīm al-Aṣbahānī—meaning, as I think, Ibn Urmah—said, ‘Abū Bakr al-Athram had a better memory and was more precise than Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī.’

I add: I have not been able to determine the exact year of al-Athram’s death. He died in the town of Iskāf sometime around 260 AH, either a little before or a little after that (4).