‘My uncle—[relating] from Abū ʿUbayd and ʿĀṣim ibn ʿAlī—and I myself heard from both of them.’

He went on: When his own companions passed away, the people rallied around him, gathered in his circle, and he became widely accepted; yet, for all his popularity and solid chain of transmission, the audience of Ibn Ṣāʿid was several times larger than his.

I (the author) say: Ibn ʿAdī overstated the matter. He could not produce more than two hadiths in which al-Baghawī erred, and this actually speaks for the man’s accuracy and reliable memory, for he transmitted more than one hundred thousand reports without a single slip. Ibn ʿAdī then moderated his tone, dealt fairly, and said:

‘Abū al-Qāsim possessed a measure of knowledge of hadith and of the existing compilations. He lived to a great age, people came to depend on him, and he was accepted by the public. Had I not set myself the rule that, in al-Kāmil, I would mention everyone about whom any critic had spoken, I would not have mentioned him at all.’

Abū Yaʿlā al-Khalīlī said: ‘Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī was among the long-lived scholars. He heard hadith from Dāwūd ibn Rūshayd, al-Ḥakam ibn Mūsā, Ṭālūt ibn ʿAbbād, the two sons of Abū Shaybah, and many others…’—until he said:

‘He had one hundred shaykhs with whom no one else shared. In the final years of his life he no longer went out to the teachers.

He was a ḥāfiẓ, well-versed; he compiled the Musnad of his uncle ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Because of envy in his later years some people spoke against him, though nothing they said undermines his standing. I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Muḥammad say:

“I heard Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim say, ‘I heard al-Baghawī declare: I copied books for one thousand shaykhs.’”’

Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Sulaymānī, the ḥāfiẓ, said: ‘Al-Baghawī is suspected of stealing hadith.’

I respond: This accusation is unfounded. Anyone who levels it against Abū al-Qāsim does not know what he is saying; rather, he is absolutely trustworthy.

Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAlī al-Khuṭabī said: ‘Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, the copy-scribe, died on the night before ʿĪd al-Fiṭr in the year 317 AH and was buried on the day of the feast, having completed one hundred—’