al-Isfarāyīnī, who, in my estimation, is the strongest of the three (1).
Imam Abū al-Ṭayyib passed away in Rajab of the year 404 AH, in his eighties—may Allah Most High have mercy on him.
In that same year there also died: al-Sulaymānī (2); the chief Qur’an-reciter, Abū al-Faraj ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Bakrān al-Nahrawānī (3); the judge of Córdoba, Abū Bakr Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Wāqid al-Mālikī; and the ḥadith master Abū Muḥammad Ḥātim ibn Abī Ḥātim Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb al-Harawī, author of al-Sunan al-Kabīr.
122 – Ibn al-Layth, al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Kashshī *
The imam, ḥadith master, jurist, and erudite scholar Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Layth al-Kashshī (4), later al-Shīrāzī, a Shāfiʿī, counted among the leading Qur’an reciters, ḥadith memorisers, and jurists.
He was born around 320 AH.
Among those from whom he received ḥadith are: Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣamm, Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb ibn al-Akhram, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Durustawayh the grammarian, and the ḥadith master al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Rāmahurmuzī.