• Ibn Sahl al-Masarjasi al-Naysaburi;
• and the erudite scholar Abu ʿUbayd Allah Muhammad ibn ʿImran al-Marzubani al-Baghdadi, a prolific author.
382 – al-Ishtikhani, Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Mutt
He was an Imām and jurist: Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Mutt al-Samarkandi, known as al-Ishtikhani, a Shafiʿi.
Ishtikhan—with a dotted shin—is a large village seven farsakhs (parasangs) from Samarkand.
He related Sahih al-Bukhari from al-Firabri, having heard it in 319 AH.
Among those who transmitted from him were: Abu Saʿd al-Idrisi, ʿAli ibn Sukhtam al-Samarkandi, and the jurist Abu Nasr ad-Dawudi. He himself was counted among the senior jurists, renowned for his asceticism and devotion.
Abu Kamil al-Basri said: “I heard the jurist Abu Nasr ad-Dawudi say: I visited Ibn Mutt in Ishtikhan, and he asked me, ‘Have you heard the collection of al-Bukhari?’ I replied, ‘Yes.’
‘From whom?’ he inquired. I said, ‘From Ismaʿil al-Hajabi.’ He responded, ‘Listen to it from me, for I am more accurate in it. I was already studying jurisprudence and was a grown man when I heard it, whereas Ismaʿil was a small child, carried on someone’s shoulder and unable to walk. Can my audition and his be considered equal?’ So I heard it again from Ibn Mutt.”
Al-Idrisi states in his History of Samarkand: “Al-Ishtikhani was an ascetic jurist; he died in Rajab of 388 AH.”
I add: Among his teachers were Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Adam ash-Shashi and others whose names I do not know.