ibn Zakariyyā al-Muṭarriz, ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad al-Kāghadhī, ʿUmar ibn Ayyūb al-Saqaṭī, Aḥmad ibn Hārūn al-Bardījī, Muḥammad ibn Jarīr al-Ṭabarī, and others of that stratum.
Those who narrated from him include al-Dāraqutnī, ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Azdī, Abū Bakr al-Barqānī, Abū Ṭālib Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Bukayr, Abū Nuʿaym al-Iṣbahānī, al-Mufīd Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Nuʿmān the Shīʿī, the judge Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-Wāsiṭī, and many others.
He was surly and difficult when it came to transmitting ḥadith, yet he ranked among the foremost authorities in the field, though he did show a measure of Shiʿite leaning.
Ibn Abī al-Fawāris declared him reliable (1).
Ibn Usāmah al-Ḥalabī said, “If the people of Aleppo possessed no virtue other than al-Ḥasan al-Sabīʿī, that would be enough for them.”
He enjoyed high standing with the ruler Sayf al-Dawlah, who revered him and would visit him in his own home.
Ibn Usāmah added, “He composed for him the book al-Tabṣirah fī Faḍl al-ʿItra al-Muṭahhara (An Exhortation on the Merit of the Purified Household), a work that gained wide circulation among the general public.
“He is also the one who endowed the Sabīʿī Bathhouse as a charitable trust for the Alids.”
Al-Ḥākim said: I asked al-Sabīʿī about the ḥadith of Ismāʿīl ibn Rajāʾ. He replied, “That report has a story behind it. Ibn Nājiya read to us the Musnad of Fāṭimah bint Qays. I then went in to al-Bāghandī and informed him, and he said, ‘I shall read to you the ḥadith of Ismāʿīl ibn Rajāʾ from al-Shaʿbī.’ I looked in the fascicle but did not find it. He said, ‘Write: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah has mentioned it.’ I said, ‘On whose authority?’—refusing to allow any concealment of the transmitter.
“He then said, ‘Muḥammad ibn ʿUbaydah the ḥāfiẓ related to me; Muḥammad ibn al-Muʿallā al-Athram related to us; Abū Bakr related to us; Muḥammad ibn Bishr al-ʿAbdī related to us, from Mālik ibn Mighwal, from Ibn Rajāʾ, from al-Shaʿbī, from Fāṭimah—the account concerning divorce and residence.’
“Afterwards I returned to Aleppo, and a Baghdādī scholar was with us, so I went over the report with him,”