- Ibn Ḥayawayh — Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Naysābūrī
The shaykh, imam, centenarian, jurist, specialist in the law of estates, and judge: Abū al-Ḥasan Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Zakariyyā b. Ḥayawayh al-Naysābūrī, later al-Miṣrī, a Shāfiʿī.
He came to Egypt as a young boy, and his uncle, the ḥadith master Yaḥyā b. Zakariyyā al-Aʿraj, arranged for him to hear narrations from Bakr b. Sahl al-Dimyāṭī, the imam Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Nasāʾī, Abū Bakr Aḥmad b. ʿAmr al-Bazzār, ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Salām al-Khaffāf, and a number of others; he also studied directly with his uncle.
Among those who transmitted from him were the ḥadith scholar ʿAbd al-Ghanī, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Khurāsānī al-Qayyās, Hārūn b. Yaḥyā al-Ṭaḥḥān, Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Abī al-Dhikr, Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ṭaffāl, and others.
Ibn Mākūlā judged him reliable and distinguished, and reported that he was born in 273 AH.
Ibn ʿAsākir likewise noted that he narrated from Muḥammad b. Jaʿfar b. Aʿyan, Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. ʿĀṣim, and Abū Yaʿqūb al-Manjanīqī.
Al-Dāraqutnī received narrations from him and said, “He never allowed anyone to speak in his teaching circle.” He also related: “I once came to a shaykh while al-Muwaṭṭaʾ was being read to him, yet he was chatting away. When the reading finished I said, ‘Shaykh, the book is being read to you while you are talking?!’”