The Imām, ḥadīth master (ḥāfiẓ), reliable authority, and erudite scholar, Shaykh al-Islam Abū Nuʿaym al-Mihrānī al-Iṣfahānī—the Sufi who was cross-eyed, grandson of the ascetic Muḥammad b. Yūsuf al-Bannāʾ and author of al-Ḥilya—
was born in 336 AH.
His father was himself a scholar of ḥadīth and an itinerant seeker of traditions. He therefore procured written licences (ijāzas) for his son from a number of the foremost transmitters: from Syria, Khaythama b. Sulaymān b. Ḥaydhara; from Nīshāpūr, Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Aṣam; from Wāsiṭ, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar b. Shawdhab; from Baghdad, Abū Sahl b. Ziyād al-Qaṭṭān and Jaʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Nuṣayr al-Khuldī; from Dīnawar, Abū Bakr b. al-Sunnī; and from others besides.
Abū Nuʿaym himself heard ḥadīth from: Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Jaʿfar b. Aḥmad b. Fāris in 344 AH; the judge Abū Aḥmad al-ʿAssāl; Aḥmad b. Bundār al-Shaʿʿār; Aḥmad b. Maʿbad al-Simsār; Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Qaṣṣār; ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan b. Bundār al-Madīnī; Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf al-Taymī; al-Ḥasan b. Saʿīd b. Jaʿfar al-ʿAbbādānī al-Muṭawwaʿī; Abū Isḥāq b. Ḥamza; Abū al-Qāsim al-Ṭabarānī; ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm al-ʿUqaylī; Abū Muslim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. Siyāh; Muḥammad b. Maʿmar b. Nāṣiḥ al-Dhuhlī; the ḥadīth master Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Jiʿābī—who travelled to them; Abū al-Shaykh b. Ḥayyān; Ibn al-Muqriʾ (1); many others in Iṣfahān; as well as Abū Bakr b. al-Haytham al-Anbārī; and Aḥmad b. Yūsuf b