ʿAbd al-Muʾmin ibn Khalaf, the ḥāfiẓ, informed us; Ibn Rawāj informed us; al-Silafī informed us, saying:
“Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad wrote to us from Basra, and Shujāʿ al-Kinānī related to me on his authority; Abū ʿUmar al-Hāshimī informed us; ʿAlī ibn Isḥāq narrated to us; ʿAlī ibn Ḥarb narrated to us; Ibn Idrīs narrated to us, from al-Aʿmash, from Shaqīq, who said:
‘Ibn Masʿūd used to say, “I am kept informed of where you are, yet nothing prevents me from coming out to you except my dislike of boring you. The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, would alternate his admonitions to us, fearing that we might grow weary.”’ (1)
In that same year—the year three (503 AH)—many others also passed away. Among them were:
• the jurist Abū al-Qāsim Aḥmad, son of the judge Abū al-Walīd al-Bājī, the uṣūl scholar;
• the jurist Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿUmar al-Bayyiʿ al-Hamadhānī;
• Abū ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ṭalḥah al-Niʿālī, the musnid of Iraq;
• the foremost linguist of the day, Salmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Futtī (2) al-Nahrawānī; and
• ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jābir ibn Yāsīn al-Ḥanbalī.
(1) The chain of transmission is sound. Al-Bukhari cites it under no. 68 in the Book of Knowledge and no. 6411 in the Book of Supplications; Muslim under no. 2821 in the chapter on the Characteristics of the Hypocrites; al-Tirmidhi under no. 2855; and Ahmad 1/377, 378, 425, 440, 443, 462—all through the narrations of al-Aʿmash with this very isnad. Al-Bukhari also relates it via the route of Mansur from Shaqiq under no. 70 in the Book of Knowledge (chapter: “Who assigns fixed days to the people of learning”), and Ahmad 1/427, 465.
(2) The nisba is written with fa, a single ta, then ya—al-Futayti—as in the manuscript and in the biographical sources that mention him. It is absent from the standard genealogical dictionaries. Al-Samʿani, 9/239, records it as “al-Futayti,” vocalised with a damma on the fa and a quiescent ya between the two tas, and notes: “This is how I found it pointed in Tarikh Baghdad 2/99.” The person concerned is Abu al-Hasan ʿAli b. Muhammad b. ʿAbd Allah al-Futayti al-Qattan of al-Nahrawan. Salman is profiled in Muʿjam al-Udabaʾ 11/234; Inbaʾ al-Ruwat 2/26-28; al-Wafi bi-l-Wafayat 15/311; Mirʾat al-Jinan 3/156; al-Suyuti’s Tabaqat al-Mufassirin, p. 13; Bughyat al-Wuʿat 1/595; Shadharat al-Dhahab 3/399; and Rawdat al-Jannat 322-323.