296 – Ibn Dillāth, Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Anas al-ʿUdhri
An imam, ḥāfiẓ, and renowned muḥaddith of proven reliability, he was Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar ibn Anas ibn Dillāth ibn Anas ibn Faladhān (1) ibn ʿUmar (2) ibn Munīb al-ʿUdhri, the Andalusian, from Almería, better known as al-Dalāʾī.
Dalāya is one of the villages belonging to Almería.
He was born on 4 Dhū al-Qaʿda 393 AH.
While still a youth his parents took him on pilgrimage. They reached Mecca in Ramadan 408 AH and remained there for eight years. During that stay he studied Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim with Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn Bundār al-Rāzī, attached himself to Abū Dharr al-Harawī, and heard Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī from him seven full readings.
He also received transmission in Mecca from Abū al-Ḥasan ibn Jahḍam, Abū Bakr ibn Nūḥ, and ʿAlī ibn Bundār al-Qazwīnī, and, so far as I know, he did not study in Egypt (3).
Back in al-Andalus he narrated from Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn ibn Yaʿqūb al-Bajjānī—one of Ibn Faḥlūn’s students—from Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAfīf, Yūnus ibn ʿAbd Allah, al-Muhallab ibn Abī Ṣufra (4), and Abū ʿUmar al-Safāqisī. He lived to a great age, linking the younger generation to the senior masters.