Abu Sahl said: “We attended the session of the judge Ismaʿil—Musa was with him—and the gathering was packed with people. Muhammad ibn Ghalib entered; when Ismaʿil caught sight of him he said, ‘Come here, Abu Jaʿfar, come,’ and he made room for him beside him on the couch. Once he was seated, Muhammad produced a notebook and said, ‘Judge, look it over,’ and he presented the ḥadith to him.

He asked, ‘Is the whole section written in a single hand?’
‘Yes,’ he replied.
‘Do you see anything in the margin?’
‘No.’
‘Then are you satisfied that this is the master copy?’
‘Indeed, by Allah,’ he answered.
‘So why am I being harmed and rebuked?’ Muhammad retorted.

Musa ibn Harun then cried out, ‘The ḥadith is fabricated!’

Nevertheless, Muhammad ibn Ghalib went ahead and narrated it in the judge’s presence, while the judge remained silent; and Ismaʿil continued to speak of Muhammad ibn Ghalib’s merit and precedence.

In another version (1) al-Daraqutni said: Ismaʿil the judge remarked, ‘People sometimes err in their youth; if you were to leave it alone, it would not harm you.’ He replied, ‘I will not retract what is in my original copy.’

Al-Daraqutni added, ‘People used to fear Tamṭām’s tongue.’

The correct position is that al-Warkani transmitted—with this chain—from ʿImran ibn Husayn, traced back to the Prophet ﷺ: ‘There is no obedience to any created being…’ (2); and immediately afterward al-Abah related, through Yazid al-Raqashi, from Anas: ‘Sūrat Hud has turned my hair gray.’

I say: He died in the month of Ramadan, in the year 283 AH, at the age of ninety.