Kitāb al-Madākhil (1) (“The Gateways”), Kitāb Fāʾit al-Jamhara (“The Supplement to al-Jamhara”), Kitāb Fāʾit al-ʿAyn (“The Supplement to al-ʿAyn”), and other works (2).

Al-Khaṭīb said: The Chief of Chiefs, Abū al-Qāsim ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan (3), told me—quoting the person who had informed him—that Abū ʿUmar al-Zāhid was tutoring the son of Abū ʿUmar Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf the judge. One day he dictated to the boy thirty linguistic questions and closed the list with two verses of poetry.

He continued: Ibn Durayd, Ibn al-Anbārī, and Abū Bakr ibn Miqsam were visiting the judge. The judge presented the questions to them, yet they recognized none of them and dismissed the verses as inauthentic.

The judge asked, “What do you make of these?”

Ibn al-Anbārī replied, “I am occupied with compiling Mushkil al-Qurʾān.”

Ibn Miqsam said that he was busy with the Qurʾānic variant readings.

Ibn Durayd remarked, “They are the fabrications of Abū ʿUmar; not a single one of them has any foundation in the language.”

When word of this reached Abū ʿUmar, he requested that the judge bring out the collected works of several poets whom he specified. The judge opened his storerooms and produced the volumes. Abū ʿUmar then proceeded, question by question, to cite a textual witness for each point and present it to the judge until he had completed the entire list. He then said:

“As for the two verses, Thaʿlab recited them to us in the judge’s presence, and the judge wrote them on the back of such-and-such a book.”

The judge fetched the book, found the couplets exactly where they had been recorded, and the story reached Ibn Durayd, who thereafter never uttered another word about Abū ʿUmar al-Zāhid until his death (4).