Ibn al-Jawzi said: “The ḥadith scholars accused him—among them al-Daraqutni—maintaining that he used to tamper with the chains of transmission and forge reports in men’s names. Allah knows best. He died suddenly in the month of Rabiʿ al-Awwal.”

Ibn Zulaq (1), al-Hasan ibn Ibrāhīm ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Khālid (2) ibn Rāshid ibn ʿAbd Allah (3) ibn Sulaymān ibn Zulaq, Abū Muḥammad al-Miṣrī, the ḥadith master.
He compiled a book on the judges of Egypt, appending it to the work of Abū ʿUmar Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb al-Kindī. Al-Kindī’s chronicle ends with the year 246 AH, while Ibn Zulaq’s supplement runs from the tenure of the judge Bakkār up to the year 386 AH, the period of Muḥammad ibn al-Nuʿmān, judge of the ʿUbaydid dynasty. I think he is the author of Kitāb al-Balāʿ, which Qāḍī al-Bāqillānī (4) refuted, or else he is the brother of that book’s author, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Nuʿmān—Allah knows best. Ibn Zulaq died at the close of Dhū al-Qaʿdah of this year (5) at the age of eighty-one. May Allah have mercy on him.

Ibn Baṭṭa, ʿUbayd Allah ibn Muḥammad [ibn Muḥammad] (6) ibn Ḥamdān (7)—Abū ʿAbd Allah al-ʿUkbarī, famous as Ibn Baṭṭa—was one of the scholars of the Ḥanbalī school, the author of numerous, comprehensive works in a variety of disciplines.
He heard ḥadith from al-Baghawī, Abū Bakr al-Naysābūrī, Ibn Ṣāʿid, and many others across several provinces. A number of ḥadith masters transmitted from him, among them Abū al-Fatḥ ibn Abī al-Fawāris, al-Azajī, and al-Barmakī. More than one leading imam praised him. He was known for enjoining what is right and forbidding what is wrong.

One of his contemporaries saw the Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—in a dream and said, “O Messenger of Allah, the legal schools have become confused for us.” He replied, “Hold fast to Abū ʿAbd Allah Ibn Baṭṭa.” When the man awoke, he went to deliver the glad tidings to him. As soon as Ibn Baṭṭa saw him, he smiled and, before the man could speak, said three times, “The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—has spoken the truth.”

Al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī later undertook to speak against Ibn Baṭṭa and to impugn him on the grounds that he claimed to have heard the Sunan of Rajāʾ ibn