Volume Eighteen

The Twenty-Fourth Generation

1 – al-Saʿdī, Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā *

The Imām, consummate scholar, and judge, Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Saʿdī, a Baghdadi by origin, was a Shāfiʿī jurist who later took up residence in Egypt. He is the transmitter of al-Baghawī’s Muʿjam al-Ṣaḥābah (Dictionary of the Companions) (1) on the authority of Ibn Batta al-ʿUkbarī (2).

He received hadith from Abū al-Faḍl al-Zuhrī, Mūsā ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Simsār, Abū Bakr ibn Shādhān, Abū Ṭāhir al-Mukhlis, and Ibn Zunbūr.

He also studied in Kūfah under Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Juʿfī al-Harawānī and others; in Ṣaydā under Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Jumayʿ; in Mosul under Ḥāmid ibn Idrīs; and in Egypt under Abū Muslim al-Kātib.

He held public dictation sessions, busied himself with teaching, and counted among the disciples of Abū Ḥāmid al-Isfarāʾīnī (3).

Those who narrated from him include Sahl ibn Bishr al-Isfarāʾīnī, ʿAlī ibn Makkī al-Azdī, and Abū