Abī Rajāʾ al-Miṣṣīṣī. Yet here is my notebook containing what I heard from him, and here is my grandson—already a mature man (1).

Hamza al-Sahmī said: Ibn Manda was asked—in my presence—about Ibn Ḥasnuwayh, the Qur’an-reciter, and he answered, “He was a shaykh who lived one hundred and ten years (2).”

I said: Ibn Manda was mistaken; he never even reached one hundred.

Hamza also related: I asked Abū Zurʿah Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf about him, and—again in my presence—he said, “A liar” (3).

Al-Ḥākim said: I heard him remark, “I have never seen anything more astonishing than this ‘Deaf One’ (4)! He used to accompany us to al-Rabīʿ ibn Sulaymān, yet he never heard a single thing from Yāsīn al-Qitbānī (5), who was al-Rabīʿ’s neighbor. I wrote down his statement and showed it to the ‘Deaf One’, whereupon he cried out, ‘By Allah, I did not even know him until after I returned from Egypt’ (6)(7).”

Abū al-Qāsim ibn Manda said: He died in Ramadan of the year 350 AH.

I add: If his own claim about his age were accurate, he would have lived ninety-eight years.

Ibn ʿAsākir said: Ibn Ḥasnuwayh was a Qur’an-reciter and merchant from Nishapur.

Muḥammad ibn Ṣāliḥ ibn Hāniʾ said: Ibn Ḥasnuwayh used to accompany us regularly to al-Sarī ibn Khuzaimah, and we escorted him on the day he set out to visit Abū Ḥātim (8).