from memory, and I am unaware of any error ever being charged against what he narrated. I also saw Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī extolling his rank and holding him in great esteem.

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Kattānī said: “I heard him declare, ‘I am Ṣāliḥ ibn Muḥammad,’ after which he traced his lineage exactly as we have already given it.”

Al-Khaṭīb (1) cited the same genealogy and added: “He transmitted solely from memory for a very long time, never carrying a book with him. He was truthful and firmly reliable, light-hearted and witty, and widely known for that.”

Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Sharqī said: “Ṣāliḥ ibn Muḥammad was reading to Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā (2) in the Zuhrīyāt, and when he reached ʿĀʾishah’s report that she used to seek healing with a kharazah (bead),
he said, ‘Rather, it is al-jazarah,’ and the nickname ‘Jazara’ stuck to him.”

Al-Ḥākim narrated this through Abū Zakariyyā al-ʿAnbarī on his authority, whereupon Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb commented: “This is mistaken, for he had already been dubbed ‘Jazara’ in his youth—that is, long before he travelled to Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā.”

He further said: “Al-Mālīnī told us; Ibn ʿAdī related to us; I heard Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Saʿdān say, ‘I heard Ṣāliḥ ibn Muḥammad recount:

A certain shaykh from Syria came to us who possessed narrations from Ḥarīz ibn ʿUthmān. I recited before him: ‘Ḥarīz (3) ibn ʿUthmān related to you that Abū Umāmah had a bead with which he would treat the sick.’ I inadvertently said jazarah, and so I was nicknamed Jazara (4).”