Al-Samʿānī relates: Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad the ḥāfiẓ said to me, “He did not possess wide learning, yet his fascicles were impeccably kept.”

Yahyā ibn Manda said: “He was a ḥāfiẓ of the reports of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ, and he knew something of literature and grammar. He was of fine character and courageous. We heard from him the book ‘Ṭabaqāt al-Samarqandiyyīn’ by al-Idrīsī.”

I add: He passed away in Shawwāl 527 AH, a little over sixty years old—may Allah have mercy on him.

366 – al-Ṣayrafī, Abū al-Faraj Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad ibn Bakr

The upright, learned, trustworthy shaykh, one of the last of the senior scholars: Abū al-Faraj Saʿīd son of Abī al-Rajāʾ Muḥammad son of Abī Manṣūr Bakr son of Abī al-Fatḥ son of Bakr ibn Ḥajjāj al-Iṣfahānī, known as al-Ṣayrafī; he was a money-changer who also brokered real estate.

He was born about the year 440 AH.

He heard from Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Nuʿmān al-Ṣāʾigh the Musnad of al-ʿAdanī (1) in 446 AH; he received the Musnad of Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Aḥmad al-Muʿallim; he also took from Ibn al-Nuʿmān and from the grandson of Bahrūyah the combined Musnad of Abū Yaʿlā (2); and he heard from Manṣūr ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Tānī and Aḥmad ibn al-Faḍl