Ibn ʿAdī said, “I noticed in him a number of reckless claims; he would even say, ‘So-and-so—a woman—related to me and said, “This is the book of So-and-so; I read in it where he writes, ‘So-and-so narrated to us …’ ” ’ (1)
The ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Sufyān stated: “Ibn ʿUqda died on the seventh of Dhū al-Qaʿdah in the year 332 AH.
“In earlier times he told me as much and issued me a written licence (ijāzah) in which he signed, ‘Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Hamdānī, client of Saʿīd ibn Qays,’ a designation he abandoned near the end of his life.
“He likewise used to sign himself, ‘Client of ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Mūsā al-Hāshimī,’ but later dropped that as well.
“I heard him say, ‘I was born in 249,’ and it is said that he was born midway through Muḥarram of that same year (2).
“Those who died in the same year as Ibn ʿUqda were: the associate of Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Abū al-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Lunbānī al-Iṣbahānī; the senior grammarian Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Wallād al-Tamīmī al-Miṣrī; the leading Mālikī scholar of Córdoba, Ayyūb ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Sulaymān al-Maʿāfirī; al-ʿAbbās ibn Muḥammad ibn Qūhiyār al-Naysābūrī; Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq al-Miṣrī al-Jawharī; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Bishr ibn Baṭrīq al-Zubayrī al-ʿAskari al-Miṣrī; the musnid of Naysābūr, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan al-Qaṭṭān; Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥudhayfah al-Dimashqī; Abū Rawq al-Hizzānī; Abū al-Faḍl Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq the jurist; and Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad ibn ʿUbādah al-Ruʿaynī of al-Andalus.”