156 – Khalaf ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī, Abū ʿAlī al-Wāsiṭī *

The leading imam, ḥadith master, and critic, Abū ʿAlī (1) Khalaf ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥamdūn al-Wāsiṭī.

He heard ḥadith from Abū Bakr al-Qaṭīʿī and his generation in Baghdad; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Saqqā in Wāsiṭ; Abū Bakr al-Ismāʿīlī in Jurjān; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Khamīruwayh in Harāt; and other comparable teachers in Syria, Egypt, Khurāsān, Persia, and Iraq. He was the travelling companion of Abū al-Fatḥ ibn Abī al-Fawāris (2) on journeys to most regions.

He compiled the book Aṭrāf al-Ṣaḥīḥayn (3) and travelled widely for trade. They say that his work contains fewer inaccuracies than the Aṭrāf of Abū Masʿūd.

Abū Nuʿaym, the ḥadith master, said: “We accompanied him in Nīshāpūr and Iṣfahān” (4).

Al-Ḥākim also mentioned him, saying: “Khalaf ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; he was a ḥadith master of the reports of Shuʿbah and others.”

I say: Al-Ḥākim—who counted him among his own shaykhs—transmitted from him, as did Abū ʿAlī al-Ahwāzī, Abū al-Qāsim ʿUbayd Allāh al-Azharī, and a number of others. He settled in Ramla, where he engaged in trade.