transmitting ḥadith (1). Only those who were unfamiliar with him found fault on that score, for he detested the practice with the utmost aversion and never debated anyone about it. It was simply his copyist and his son who would seek payment from people for that purpose (2); he disliked their doing so, yet was unable to overrule them (3).
Fathers, sons, and grandsons all narrated from him. It is honor enough for him that he related ḥadith over all those years without anyone ever establishing a single reproach against him. I have never seen scholars travel in any part of the Muslim world as frequently as they travelled to him. I myself saw groups from al-Andalus, from Taraz (4) and Isbijab (5) at his door, as well as groups from Persia and from the eastern lands (6).
I heard him more than once say, “I was born in the year 247 AH.” (7)
His father took him out along the Iṣfahān route in 265 AH; there he attended auditions, but he did not hear a single word in Ahwaz or Basra. He then performed the pilgrimage and, in Mecca, heard ḥadith from Aḥmad ibn Shaybān al-Ramli, a companion of Ibn ʿUyaynah—there, he heard only from him.
He also attended hearings in Egypt, ʿAsqalān, Beirut, Dumyāṭ, and Tarsus, where he narrated from Abū Umayyah al-Tarsusi. In Ḥimṣ he heard from Muḥammad ibn ʿAwf and Abū ʿUtbah Aḥmad ibn al-Faraj, and in al-Jazīrah from Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Maymūn al-Raqqī. He received the “Maghāzī” (The Military Campaigns) directly from the oral dictation of al-ʿAtāridī.