20 – Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī, Rūḥ ibn Muḥammad*

There are three men of this name: the eldest, a contemporary of al-Bukhārī, has already been noted (1); the middle one I have just mentioned (2); and the youngest is the eminent scholar and judge of Isfahān, Abū Zurʿah Rūḥ ibn Muḥammad, grandson (sibṭ) of the ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr ibn al-Sunnī (3).

He heard ḥadith from Isḥāq ibn Saʿd al-Nasawī, Jaʿfar ibn Fannākī (4), Abū Zurʿah Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Rāzī, Abū l-Ḥusayn ibn Fāris the philologist, and several others.

Al-Khaṭīb (5) said: “He came to us and related ḥadith in Baghdad and in al-Karaj as well. He was trustworthy, sharp-minded, cultured, and a poet, and he held the judgeship of Isfahān.

News reached me that he died in 423 AH in al-Karaj.”

I (the author) say: Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī heard from his students, even though he belongs to a later generation; I record this here for the sake of distinction.

I read before the jurist Sulaymān ibn Qudāmah, who informed us; Jaʿfar ibn ʿAlī informed him; al-Silafī informed him; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Miṣrī narrated to us, saying: “The judge Abū Zurʿah…"