asking Abū Ḥāmid ibn ash-Sharqī about a point of ḥadith.

Al-Ḥākim said: ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar the ḥāfiẓ narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd narrated to us; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ash-Sharqī narrated to me; Muḥammad ibn Zakariyyā al-Aʿraj the ḥāfiẓ narrated to us; Muḥammad ibn Mushkān as-Sarkhasī narrated to us, and he cited a report.

Abū Yaʿlā al-Khalīlī said: I heard Aḥmad ibn Abī Muslim al-Fārisī the ḥāfiẓ; I heard Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī say:

“I have never seen anyone with a better memory or a more fluent recital than Abū Ḥāmid ibn ash-Sharqī. He had compiled the collected ḥadiths of Ayyūb as-Sikhtiyānī, and I would read to him from his own manuscript while he recited along with me from memory, from the first narration to the last.”⦗1⦘

As-Sulamī: I asked ad-Dāraqutnī about Abū Ḥāmid ibn ash-Sharqī, and he replied, “Trustworthy, reliable—an imām.”

I said, “Did not Ibn ʿUqda criticize him?”

He answered, “Glory be to Allah! Do you think words like his carry any weight against the man—even if, instead of Ibn ʿUqda, the speaker had been Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn?”

I asked, “And Abū ʿAlī?”

He said, “And who is Abū ʿAlī that his opinion should even be considered in this matter?”⦗2⦘

Al-Khaṭīb said: “Abū Ḥāmid was firmly reliable, a ḥāfiẓ, precise.”⦗3⦘

Al-Khalīlī said: “He was the uncontested imām of his age.”

Hamzah as-Sahmī said: I asked Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbdān, concerning Ibn ʿUqda—when he reports something in al-jarḥ wa’t-taʿdīl, is his statement accepted? He replied, “It is not accepted.”⦗4⦘

The ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥāmid had an elder brother—namely the long-lived traditionist