who said, ‘I compiled this Musnad—meaning his Ṣaḥīḥ—from three-hundred thousand hadiths that I personally heard.’

Al-Ḥākim stated elsewhere, “Abū ʿAlī arranged the narrations of al-Zuhrī and surpassed Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī in doing so.”

I say: I suspect he secured al-Zuhrī’s material through Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Miṣrī.

Al-Ḥākim added, “By rough calculation, his Musnad, when copied in the scribes’ hand, would fill more than three thousand fascicles.”

I say: That would amount to one hundred and fifty large volumes.

He (al-Ḥākim) said, “In my judgment no Musnad larger than this has ever been produced in Islam. Abū Muḥammad ibn Ziyād even convened a public session devoted to its recitation.

“The Musnad of Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, in the compiler’s own hand, ran to a dozen or so fascicles, complete with critical notes on hidden defects and corroborating chains; when the copyists reproduced it, it swelled to a little over sixty fascicles.”

He died in the month of Rajab, 365 AH, and the funeral prayer was led by his nephew, the Imām Abū al-Ḥasan al-Māsarjisī.

I say: None of his narrations have come down to me. Perhaps some survive in the works of al-Bayhaqī.

204 – al-Rāzī, Abū Ghālib Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān*

The shaykh of the Shīʿa and their chief author, Abū Ghālib Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān ibn Bukayr al-Rāzī.

Abū Jaʿfar al-Ṭūsī said in The History of the Compilers among Their Followers: “A signed decree (tawqīʿ) emerged from …”