I maintain that the sounder date is the year 353 AH, as noted above.
Al-Ḥākim said: I heard the jurist Abū al-Qāsim al-Dārakī remark: The vizier Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbbād gathered the ḥadīth masters of our region in Isfahān—al-ʿAssāl Abū Aḥmad, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī, Abū Isḥāq ibn Ḥamzah and others—and I was present. Ibn al-Jiʿābī had also come. They began reviewing the topical chapters, then turned to the biographies of the shaykhs, and it soon became evident that all of them fell short of Abū Isḥāq ibn Ḥamzah in memorization and discussion.
Al-Ḥākim further said: I heard the ḥāfiẓ Abū ʿAlī state: Abū ʿUbayd ibn Ḥarbawayh, after finishing his judgeship in Egypt, arrived in Baghdad. He used to narrate from Abū al-Ashʿath, ʿUmar ibn Shabbah and their peers; later he aimed higher and transmitted from Bundār and Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā.
Once in Baghdad he actually narrated from Abū al-Rabīʿ al-Zahrānī and Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥajjāj al-Sāmī. Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥamzah al-Iṣfahānī, who was close to him, told me: “Abū ʿUbayd has said, ‘I have resolved to relate ḥadīths on the authority of Abū al-Walīd al-Ṭayālisī and al-Ḥawḍī.’ ” I replied, “Fear Allah, O Judge! We would be pelted—that is, accused of fabrication.”
I (the author) add: this Ibn Ḥarbawayh was indeed brazen in lying.
During that same year there died: Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf ibn Afrajah al-Iṣfahānī; the Qur’an reciter of Baghdad, Bakkār ibn Aḥmad ibn Bakkār Abū ʿĪsā al-Baghdādī; the chief ḥadīth authority (musnid) of Baghdad, Abū al-Fawāris Shujāʿ ibn Jaʿfar, the preacher; the muḥaddith Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Fākihī al-Makkī; Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Khurūf in Egypt; and Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn Hārūn ibn Shuʿayb al-Anṣārī.