Al-Wāḥid al-Daqqāq remarked:
“The foremost ḥuffāẓ I encountered include Abū Muslim al-Laythī. He came to us in Isfahan, and of all people I have seen he knew the Two Books best; he brought the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections together in a single work over forty years.” ⦗1⦘
Shayrawayh al-Daylamī said: “He reached our city, yet it was not decreed that I should hear from him. He had memorised extensively, but he was given to tadlīs. Abū l-Qāsim ibn al-Baṣrī narrated to me from him. He died in Khūzistān in 466 AH.” ⦗2⦘
Abū l-Faḍl ibn Khayrūn said: “He passed away in al-Ahwāz in 468 AH. I heard from him and he heard from me. He tended to distance himself from the scholars and was rather pleased with himself—may Allah have mercy on him.” ⦗3⦘
205 – al-Bayāḍī, Masʿūd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Muḥsin
The poet, accomplished and noble; Abū Jaʿfar Masʿūd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Muḥsin al-Hāshimī al-ʿAbbāsī. ⦗4⦘
(1) Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 4/1236: he combined the two Sahihs into forty fascicles, each of which is almost the size of a separate volume.
(2) Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 4/1236. The author also lists him in the obituaries for this same year—“the year six”—under the entry of al-Hafsi; Ibn al-Athir likewise dates his death there in al-Lubab, 3/138.
(3) Tadhkirat al-Huffaz, 4/1236.
(*) Additional sources: Dumiya al-Qasr 1/378; al-Muntazam 8/300-301; al-Kamil (Ibn al-Athir) 10/101-102; Wafayat al-Ayan 5/197-199; al-Mukhtasar 2/192; Timmat al-Mukhtasar 1/569-570; Mirat al-Janan 3/97; al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya 12/113-114; al-Nujum al-Zahira 5/103; Shadharat al-Dhahab 3/331-332. Ibn Khallikan explains the sobriquet al-Bayadi: during a caliphal audience all the ‘Abbasids wore black except one of his ancestors, who was in white. The caliph asked, “Who is that bayadi (the man in white)?”—and the name remained.
(4) In al-Muntazam, al-Kamil, and al-Bidaya he is called Masud ibn al-Muhsin, with “Abd al-Aziz” omitted.