others have transmitted it as well.’

I said, ‘Abu Turab has been treated unfairly in everything you have mentioned.’

Later I repeated this conversation to Abu al-Husayn al-Hajjaji; he approved my remarks and said, ‘What you have said is the correct assessment.’

I then reviewed a large number of volumes written in Abu Turab’s own hand and found nothing in them that warranted censure; every one of his narrations was sound.

I heard the ḥāfiẓ Abu Aḥmad say: ‘I was present when Ibn Khuzaymah asked Abu Ḥāmid al-Aʿmashiyy, “How many reports did al-Aʿmash relate from Abu Ṣāliḥ, from Abu Saʿīd?” Abu Ḥāmid began to enumerate them one after another until he had finished, while Abu Bakr (Ibn Khuzaymah) looked on in amazement.’

I also heard Muḥammad ibn Ḥāmid al-Bazzāz say: ‘We visited Abu Ḥāmid al-Aʿmashiyy when he was ill. I asked, “How are you feeling?” He replied, “I am well, were it not for this neighbour”—meaning Abu Ḥāmid al-Julūdī, the transmitter of Aḥmad ibn Ḥafṣ—then he added:

“He claims to be a scholar, yet he has memorised only three books: the Book of Heart-Blindness, the Book of Forgetfulness, and the Book of Ignorance.

“He came to me yesterday, when my sickness was severe, and said, ‘Abu Ḥāmid! Do you know that Zanjuyah has died?’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He went on, ‘Today I visited al-Muʾammal ibn al-Ḥasan; he is in the throes of death.’ Then he asked, ‘Abu Ḥāmid! How old are you now?’ I replied, ‘I am in my eighty-sixth year.’ He said, ‘Then you are older than your father was when he died.’ I answered, ‘Praise be to Allah, I am in good health: I had intercourse twice last night, and today I have done the like.’ At that he felt embarrassed and left.”’

It is said that the man of this entry was the son of the ascetic Ḥamdun al-Qaṣṣār, one of the early masters of the spiritual path.

Abu Ḥāmid died in Rabiʿ al-Awwal of the year 321 AH, having reached nearly ninety years of age.