With this same chain: al-Ṣūrī informed us. ʿAbd al-Ghanī said to me, “I heard al-Dāraquṭnī say, ‘Ibn ʿUqda knows what the scholars possess, but they do not know what he possesses.’ (1)

Al-Ṣūrī also said: Abū Saʿd al-Mālinī told me that Ibn ʿUqda once decided to relocate. He hired porters to carry his books and stipulated that he would give each man one dāniq (a sixth of a dirham). He then weighed out their wages—one hundred dirhams in all—and his books came to six hundred loads. (2)(3)

With this same chain: Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Hamadhānī related to us; Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad the ḥāfiẓ narrated to us; I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zaʿfarānī say:

“Ibn Ṣāʿid narrated a ḥadith in Baghdad in which he erred in the chain of transmission. Ibn ʿUqda challenged him on it, whereupon Ibn Ṣāʿid’s followers turned on Ibn ʿUqda and appealed to the vizier ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā, who had Ibn ʿUqda imprisoned. The vizier asked, ‘Whom shall we consult and defer to in this matter?’ They replied, ‘Ibn Abī Ḥātim.’ The vizier wrote to him for clarification; after examining the matter, Ibn Abī Ḥātim found that the ḥadith was exactly as Ibn ʿUqda had said. He wrote back confirming this, so Ibn ʿUqda was released and his reputation soared. (4)

With this same chain: Ḥamzah ibn Muḥammad al-Daqqāq narrated to us; I heard a number of people say that Ibn Ṣāʿid used to dictate from memory. One day he dictated a ḥadith from Abū Kuraib, from Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar. When it was shown to Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn ʿUqda he remarked, “As far as Abū Muḥammad is concerned, this is not from Abū Kuraib; he heard it from Abū Saʿīd al-Ashajj.” This comment reached Ibn Ṣāʿid, who checked his original copy and found it exactly as Ibn ʿUqda had said. When the people gathered, he announced, “We once reported to you, on the authority of Abū Kuraib, the ḥadith that says such-and-such, but we were mistaken…"