ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Abī al-Fatḥ told me: “People say that if so much as a bird flew past, Abū ʿUmar would immediately declare, ‘Thaʿlab narrated to us from Ibn al-Aʿrābī,’ and would then mention something to that effect.” (1)

With respect to ḥadith, I have seen all of our teachers regard him as trustworthy. ʿAlī ibn Abī ʿAlī related to us, on the authority of his father, who said: “Of all the transmitters I have ever seen, none had a better memory than Abū ʿUmar Ghulām Thaʿlab. According to what has reached me, he dictated—purely from memory—thirty thousand folios on language. Every one of his books was produced by dictation without prior composition, and because his memory was so prodigious he came under suspicion.

He would be asked about something that one might suppose the questioner had just invented (2); he would answer it, and then another person would pose the same question a year later, and he would give exactly the same reply (3).

I was informed that he was once asked about qanṭazah (4) and someone said to him, “What is it?” He replied, “Such-and-such.” We laughed aloud, and several months later we arranged for someone else to ask him about it. He remarked, “Was I not asked about this months ago, and did I not answer?” (5)

Ibn Khallikān said: He produced a supplemental fascicle to Thaʿlab’s al-Faṣīḥ, which he entitled Fāʾit al-Faṣīḥ (“The Addendum to al-Faṣīḥ”). Among his other works are Kitāb al-Yāqūta (6) (“The Ruby”), Kitāb al-Muwaḍḍiḥ (“The Clarifier”), Kitāb al-Sāʿāt (“The Hours”), Kitāb Yawm wa Laylah (“A Day and a Night”), Kitāb al-Mustahsan (“The Commendable”), Kitāb al-Shūrā (“Consultation”), Kitāb al-Buyūʿ (“Sales”), Kitāb Tafsīr Asmāʾ al-Shuʿarāʾ (“An Exposition of the Poets’ Names”), Kitāb al-Qabāʾil (“The Tribes”), Kitāb al-Maknūn wa al-Maktūm (“The Hidden and the Concealed”), Kitāb al-Tuffāḥah (“The Apple”), and Kitāb