and it was presented to the ḥuffāẓ (1), who faulted me in six hadiths: three of them I had reported exactly as I had received them, and in three I had indeed erred (2).

This is how Abū al-Qāsim al-Azharī narrated the story from Ibn Shādhān, and others have narrated it as well, adding that it occurred in Isfahan.

The same report was transmitted by the ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAlī al-Naysābūrī from Ibn Abī Dāwūd. Thus al-Azharī is mistaken (3).

Al-Ḥākim Abū ʿAbd Allāh said: I heard Abū ʿAlī the ḥāfiẓ relate that he heard Ibn Abī Dāwūd say: “In Isfahan I narrated from memory thirty-six thousand hadiths. They obliged me to concede error in seven of them, but when I returned I found in my manuscript five of those seven exactly as I had first related them (4).”

The ḥāfiẓ Abū Muḥammad al-Khallāl said: “Ibn Abī Dāwūd was the imam of the people of Iraq—the very one for whom the ruler set up the pulpit. In his time there were shaykhs in Iraq with higher isnāds than his, yet they never reached his level of technical mastery and precision (5).”

Abū Dharr al-Harawī reported: Abū Ḥafṣ ibn Shāhīn informed us, saying, “Ibn Abī Dāwūd dictated to us for years, and I never saw a book in his hands; he dictated purely from memory, and he would sit on—”