and the noble sharif, al-Ṭāhir Abū Aḥmad Ḥusayn ibn Mūsā al-ʿAlawī al-Mūsawī, the father of al-Raḍī and al-Murtaḍā; Sulaymān ibn Hishām, the Qur’an-reciter, better known as Ibn al-Ghammāz (1); Abū Nuʿaym al-Isfarāyinī; Abū Bakr ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn ʿAlī ibn Ghayyāth of Baghdad; Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Khushanī of Ṭulayṭulah; and Muḥammad ibn Hishām ibn ʿAbd al-Jabbār al-Mahdī al-Marwānī (2).
- Abū Nuʿaym al-Isfarāyinī ʿAbd al-Malik ibn al-Ḥasan*
The shaykh, the scholar, the senior transmitter of Khurāsān—Abū Nuʿaym ʿAbd al-Malik ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn al-Azhar al-Azhari al-Isfarāyinī.
He related from his father’s maternal-uncle, the ḥadith master Abū ʿAwāna, through the latter’s work al-Ṣaḥīḥ (3). He heard the book while it was being read aloud by his own father, who was also a ḥadith master. He lived to a great age, and the traditionists flocked to him in large numbers.
The ḥadith master ʿAbd al-Ghāfir ibn Ismāʿīl said, “This Abū Nuʿaym was a righteous and trustworthy man. He came to Naysābūr toward the end of his life, and no gathering like the one he held there has been seen since.”
(1) See Ghayat al-nihaya fi tabaqat al-qurra, vol. 1, p. 317.
(2) He will be mentioned again under the biography of Hisham al-Muayyad Billah, no. 78.
(*) Al-Ansab, vol. 1, p. 236; Tarikh al-Islam, 4/115/2 and 4/116/1; al-Ibar, 3/73; Shadharat al-dhahab, 3/159.
The nisba “al-Isfarayini” is derived from the town of Isfarayin. It is pronounced with a kasra on the initial hamza—although Yaquṭ vocalised it with a fatha—followed by a quiescent sīn, a fatha on the fāʾ, and a kasra on the yāʾ. According to the sounder usage, the word is not hamzated, though some allow the hamza. This is the vocalisation adopted by the present author, as well as by al-Samʿani, Ibn Khallikan, Ibn al-Athir, al-Suyuti, al-Fayruzabadi, al-Isnawi and Yaquṭ. Yaquṭ alone records an additional quiescent yāʾ, giving the form “Isfarayyin,” which is the best-known spelling.
See Taj al-ʿarus, vol. 9, p. 235; Wafayat al-aʿyan, 1/74; Muʿjam al-buldan; Al-Ansab; Al-Lubab; Lub al-lubab; and Tabaqat al-Isnawi, 1/59.
(3) This refers to the Musnad al-sahih arranged on the pattern of Sahih Muslim. The first, second, fourth and fifth volumes have been printed in Hyderabad (India). The editor of these volumes notes that, to date, no manuscript of the third volume has been located.