compiling this book—meaning al-Mustakhraj ʿalā Kitāb Muslim (1). I also heard him regret having produced al-Mukhtaṣar al-Ṣaḥīḥ al-Muttafaq ʿAlayh, and he would say, “It is our right and duty to exert ourselves in adding to the authentic corpus.” —Al-Ḥākim went on to say—

Abū ʿAbd Allāh was among the most eloquent of people; never was a single grammatical slip recorded against him. He had fine remarks regarding hidden defects in ḥadith and the transmitters (2).

I heard Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Hāniʾ say: “Ibn Khuzaymah ranked Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yaʿqūb above all his contemporaries. He relied on his judgment when rejecting a report, and whenever he felt uncertain about something he would submit it to him.” (3)

Al-Ḥākim said: “We attended a session of al-Ṣibghī at which Abū ʿAlī the ḥāfiẓ and Ibn al-Akhram were also present. Al-Ṣibghī dictated—from Ibrāhīm al-Hisnajānī, from Abū al-Ṭāhir, from Ibn Wahb, from Yūnus, from al-Zuhrī, from Abū Salamah, from Abū Hurayrah—in a Prophetic report: ‘Whoever catches one rakʿah of the prayer has caught the prayer’ (4).

Ibn al-Akhram asked, “O Abū ʿAlī, who transmits it with the wording, ‘has caught the whole of it’?”

He replied, “We know that wording only in the ḥadith of ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar from al-Zuhrī.”

Abū ʿAbd Allāh said, “Yes—it is also in the ḥadith of Ḥarmalah, from Ibn Wahb, from Yūnus: ‘has caught the whole of it’ (5).”

Abū ʿAlī responded, “Ibn Qutaybah narrated it to us from Ḥarmalah, but he did not mention: ‘the whole of it.’”