al-Ḥasan ibn Isḥāq al-ʿAṭṭār said, “I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Hārūn say: We were at sea, sailing toward Ifriqiyyah. The wind fell still, so we anchored at a place called al-Barṭūn. With us was a young Slav boy named Ayman who carried a fishhook (1) for catching fish. He hooked a fish roughly a span long, or a little less. On the right side of its head the words ‘There is no god but Allah’ were inscribed, and on its occiput (2) and the left side of its head were the words ‘Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah.’ The lettering was clearer than an engraving on stone. The fish itself was white, the writing black, as though written in ink.
He continued, “So we threw the fish back into the sea and forbade anyone to fish in that spot until we had travelled a good distance on (3).”
Musallam ibn Muḥammad informed us: al-Kindī told us, al-Qazzāz told us, Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb told us, and he related this account.
77 – Ibrāhīm ibn Ūrma, Abū Isḥāq al-Iṣbahānī *
The imam, ḥāfiẓ, and distinguished scholar Abū Isḥāq al-Iṣbahānī, who taught the community in Baghdad.
He narrated from Muḥammad ibn Bakkār ibn al-Rayyān, Ṣāliḥ ibn Ḥātim ibn Wardān, ʿĀṣim ibn al-Naḍr, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muʿādh, ʿAbbās al-ʿAnbarī, ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Fallās, and their peers.