he possesses from ʿAffān thirty thousand hadiths.’

Abū Ḥātim replied, ‘Whoever claims that he has from ʿAffān thirty thousand hadiths is lying. ʿAffān was tight-fisted in transmission; I kept going to him for thirteen months and wrote down from him no more than about five hundred hadiths.’

I said, ‘Abū Ḥātim, are we to accuse Ibrāhīm (1) of fabrication?!’

Ṣāliḥ said: I heard al-Qāsim ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ relate that he heard Ibrāhīm say, ‘I heard the hadith of Hammām, from Abū Jamrah, from ʿAffān, four hundred times, because people used to ask him about it; and when ʿAffān was summoned to the inquisition, I was the one holding the bridle of his donkey.’

Ṣāliḥ added, ‘Anyone who keeps up that kind of attendance is hardly likely to leave anything unrecorded.’ (2)

Abū Jaʿfar ibn ʿUbayd said: I asked Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥusayn about Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dīnawarī, and he answered, ‘I saw him with Abū Nuʿaym. He is not the sort of man who would lie, though it is possible that material which the critics rejected was inserted into his collection.’

He (3) also said: I heard al-Qāsim ibn Abī Ṣāliḥ relate that he heard Ibrāhīm say, ‘I was in Medina when Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār Sandūl arrived. I supplied him with narrations from Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Uways, and Ismāʿīl used to honor him. When he came in, Ismāʿīl seated him beside him on the couch, while I remained standing at the door. Muḥammad began questioning Ismāʿīl; he noticed me and said, “This is the doing of that beggar—throw him out.” So I was expelled.

‘Later I traveled with Muḥammad to Mecca, and along the road I reviewed narrations with him. He was amazed and asked, “Where did you get all this?” I said, “This is what the paupers hear.”’

Al-Qāsim further related that he heard Yaḥyā al-Karābīsī say, ‘We have collated our books…’