Abū Bakr the ḥāfiẓ said:

ʿAlī ibn Abī ʿAlī al-Muʿaddal narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Jaʿfar al-Bazzār narrated to us; al-Baghawī narrated to me, saying:

“I used to work as a copyist. I asked my grandfather, Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ, to go with me to Saʿīd ibn Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Umawī and request him to give me the first fascicle of his father’s work on the military campaigns so that I could copy it. He came with me, made the request, and Saʿīd handed it over. I took the volume and went around with it. The first person I visited was Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Mughallis; I showed him the book and told him that I intended to read the Maghāzī to al-Umawī. He handed me twenty dīnārs and said, ‘Make me a copy of it.’

“After that I spent the rest of the day going about, receiving from twenty dīnārs down to ten—sometimes more, sometimes less—until by the end of the day I had collected two hundred dīnārs. I produced copies for their owners for a token fee, read them back to them, and kept the remainder as profit.

“With this same chain to the ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr: Abū al-Walīd al-Darbandī narrated to me; I heard ʿAbdān ibn Aḥmad the preacher—grandson of Aḥmad ibn ʿAbdān al-Shīrāzī—say, ‘I heard my grandfather relate:

“Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī passed by the Ṭābaq canal (1) at the gate of a mosque and heard the voice of a prompter. He asked, ‘Who is that?’ They replied, ‘Ibn Ṣāʿid.’

“He said, ‘That youngster?’

“They answered, ‘Yes.’

“He swore, ‘By Allah, I will not leave until I dictate right here.’

“So he climbed onto a platform, sat down, and when the ḥadith students saw him they rose and left Ibn Ṣāʿid. Then he said, ‘Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal narrated to us before the ḥadith scholars were born; Ṭālūt narrated to us before the ḥadith scholars were born; and Abū Naṣr al-Tammār narrated to us.’

“He thereupon dictated sixteen hadiths from sixteen different shaykhs—no one remained who could transmit from them except him.” (2)