a satchel full of material from ʿAbd Allah ibn Ṣāliḥ, and from Ḥumayd I possess nothing but this single tablet; and I praise Allah for speaking the truth (1).

One of our companions added—through al-Ṣaffār—that a man remarked, “Abū Isḥāq, had you claimed ‘I heard’ regarding things you never actually heard, Allah would never have turned all these faces toward you.”

Al-Ḥākim went on to say: I heard the judge Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ declare, “We know of no one whom Baghdad has produced like Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī in literature, jurisprudence, ḥadith, and asceticism.” He then cited for him a book on the rare expressions in ḥadith, the likes of which had never been written before (2).

Judge Abū al-Muṭarrif ibn Fuṭays said: I heard Abū al-Ḥasan al-Muqriʾ say, I heard Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad ibn Bayān al-Baghdādī say, I heard Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī—there was no one like him in his day—when he was asked about the issue of “the name and the named,” reply: “For seventy years I have been sitting with the people of knowledge, and never once have I heard any of them discuss the question of the name and the named” (3).

ʿUmar ibn ʿIrāk al-Muqriʾ reported: Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mawlid told us; Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Khālid told us; and Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī told me: “We were with ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿĀʾishah in his mosque when a beggar came and knocked, asking for alms, but he had nothing with him to give…"