the nephew of al-Imām al-Ḥalabī; Abū al-Jahm Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Ṭalāb; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Salm of Raqqa; Abū al-Ḥasan Aḥmad ibn Jawṣā, the ḥāfiẓ; Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Ḥalabī, later of Damascus; Ṣadaqah ibn Manṣūr al-Kindī al-Ḥarrānī; Muḥammad ibn Sufyān al-Maṣṣīṣī, the tinsmith; Yaḥyā ibn Muḥammad ibn Ṣāʿid; Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Daybulī; al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Faḍl ibn Shādhān al-Rāzī, the Qur’an-reciter; Muḥammad ibn Marwān ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Bazzāz al-Dimashqī—so he was called, though he is in fact Muḥammad ibn Khuraym al-ʿUqaylī; ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAttāb al-Ziftī; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Mustanīr al-Maṣṣīṣī; ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Ghaḍāʾirī; Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb, the Qur’an-reciter of Wāsiṭ; Muḥammad ibn al-Musayyab al-Arghiyānī; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim—and many others throughout Syria, Iraq, the Jazīrah, the Hijaz, Khurasan, and the Jibāl.
He was one of the oceans of knowledge.
Those who transmitted from him include: Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Ḥākim; Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī; Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Aṣbahānī, the plasterer; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Jārūdī; Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn Manjawayh; Abū Ḥafṣ ibn Sarūr; Ṣāʿid ibn Muḥammad the judge; Abū Saʿd Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kanjarūdhī; Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Baḥīrī; and others.
Al-Ḥākim Ibn al-Bayyiʿ said: “He was the leading scholar of his age in this discipline, prolific in authorship, and unrivalled in knowing the conditions of authentic reports, as well as the narrators’ names and kunyas.”
He began seeking hadith when he was just over twenty years old … until he said:
“He never entered Egypt. At first he was foremost in establishing narrators’ integrity, then he was appointed judge in the year 333 AH … until he was entrusted with the judgeship of al-Shāsh, where he went and presided for four—”