the pulpit after he had lost his sight, while his son Abū Maʿmar would sit one step below him holding a book. The son would say, “The ḥadīth of such-and-such,” and his father would reel it off from memory until the entire session was complete.

One day he recited to us from memory the ḥadīth of “al-Futūn” (1). Abū Tammām al-Zaynabī rose and exclaimed, “By Allah, splendid indeed! I have seen no one like you except, perhaps, Ibrāhīm al-Harbī.”

He replied, “Everything Ibrāhīm kept in memory I keep in memory as well; in addition, I know the stars, whereas he did not.” (2)

Musallam ibn Muḥammad (3) and others told us that they heard Abū al-Yaman al-Kindī relate: Abū Manṣūr al-Shaybānī narrated to us, saying: Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb said, “ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Dāwūd’s father brought him out of Sijistān and carried him far and wide—east and west—through Khurāsān, the mountain regions, Isfahan, Fars, Basra, Baghdad, Kūfa, Mecca, Medina, Syria, Egypt, the Jazīra, and the frontier towns, so that he might listen to ḥadīths and write them down.”

He later settled in Baghdad and authored the Musnad, the Sunan, a Tafsīr, works on the Qurʾānic readings, al-Nāsikh wa-l-Mansūkh, and other books besides.

He was a jurist, a scholar, and a hadith master (4).

I add: he was a man of standing, proud of spirit and somewhat self-assured—may Allah pardon him.