ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Ḥarrānī; Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaḍāʾirī; Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Thābit; and Abū al-Qāsim Ziyād ibn Yūnus, whom he met in al-Qayrawān sometime in the 340s AH.
He was unique in his age and the last man on earth to relate from al-Baghawī and Ibn Abī Dāwūd, although scholars regard him as somewhat weak.
Those who transmitted from him include the ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Azdī, Abū ʿAmr al-Dānī, Rashāʾ ibn Naẓīf, Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī, Aḥmad ibn Bābashādh al-Jawharī, Abū al-Faḍl ibn Bundār, Abū al-Ḥusayn Muḥammad ibn Makkī al-Azdī, Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿAdī al-Samarqandī, Abū Ibrāhīm Aḥmad ibn al-Qāsim ibn Maymūn al-Ḥusaynī, ʿAlī ibn Baqāʾ the bookseller, the judge Muḥammad ibn Salāmah al-Quḍāʿī, and many others.
Al-Khaṭīb said: al-Ṣūrī told me, “Some of Abū Muslim’s master copies from al-Baghawī and others are sound.”
I asked him, “How does his status compare with that of Ibn al-Jundī?”
He replied, “Certain confusions have been detected in his work, but he is still better than Ibn al-Jundī.”
Abū Muslim’s agent, himself a ḥadith scholar and memoriser—he was called Abū al-Ḥusayn al-ʿAṭṭār—told me: “I found nothing among Abū Muslim’s originals from al-Baghawī that was authentic except a single fascicle whose audition record was sound; everything else was defective (1).”
Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb also said: “He served as secretary to the vizier Abū al-Faḍl ibn Ḥinẓābah (2).”
Abū Isḥāq al-Ḥabbāl stated: “Abū Muslim died in Dhū al-Qaʿdah, 399 AH.”