Ibn Fādhshāh; ʿAlī b. Aḥmad al-Burjī; Ghānim b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Burjī; ʿAbbād b. Manṣūr al-Muʿaddal; al-Faḍl b. ʿAbd al-Wāḥid; al-Faḍl b. ʿUmar b. Sahlawayh; Abū Ṭāhir al-Muḥassad b. Muḥammad; Mubashshir b. Muḥammad al-Jurjānī, the preacher; Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād; his brother Abū al-Faḍl Ḥamd; and many other shaykhs from whom al-Silafī learned— the last of them, after al-Ḥaddād, being Abū Ṭāhir ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Muḥammad al-Dashtaj al-Dhahabī.
He was an outstanding ḥāfiẓ, renowned for his elevated chains of transmission. He alone possessed an extraordinary number of high-isnād reports, and the leading ḥadith masters travelled to meet him.
Abū Muḥammad al-Samarqandī said, “I heard Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb remark, ‘I have not seen anyone worthy of the title ḥāfiẓ except two men: Abū Nuʿaym al-Isfahānī and Abū Ḥāzim al-ʿAbdawī.’ (1)
Ibn al-Mufaḍḍal, himself a ḥāfiẓ, said: ‘Our teacher Abū Ṭāhir al-Silafī compiled the accounts of Abū Nuʿaym and listed those who narrated from him—about eighty in total—and he declared, “No book equals his Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ. We heard it from Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Qāsānī (2) on his authority, with only a few pages missing.” (3)’