Barthold, commenting on the importance of Zamul Akhbar for the history of Khurasan area also writes that the portion relating
to India is' entirely dependent on Arabic sources', and that the translation is incorrect in some cases.
He used al-Bukhari's Kitab at-Tarikh as a source when mentioning discrepancies in the text of a hadith or its transmitters,
and praised al-Bukhari as being the most knowledgeable person in Iraq or Khurasan in the science of discrepancies of hadith.