6 – al-Sayyidī, Abū Muḥammad Hibat Allāh ibn Sahl ibn ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad—
The shaykh, the imām, a righteous devotee, and the leading transmitter of his time. He is Abū Muḥammad Hibat Allāh ibn Sahl ibn ʿUmar, son of the shaykh Abū ʿUmar Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Abī al-Haytham al-Bisṭāmī, later of Nishapur, known as al-Sayyidī.
Born: Rabīʿ al-Awwal, 443 AH.
He studied with Abū Ḥafṣ ibn Masrūr, Abū al-Ḥusayn ʿAbd al-Ghāfir al-Fārisī, Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd ibn Muḥammad al-Baḥīrī, Abū Yaʿlā al-Ṣābūnī, Abū Bakr al-Bayhaqī, Abū Saʿd al-Kanjarūdhī, and a number of others.
Reported from him: Ibn ʿAsākir (1), al-Samʿānī, al-Muʾayyad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭūsī, al-Quṭb al-Nīsābūrī, and a group of scholars.
By written authorization: Abū al-Qāsim ibn al-Ḥarastānī.
Al-Samʿānī said: “A learned, upright shaykh, given to abundant worship and long night-vigil prayers; yet he was difficult in temperament, stern-faced, disinclined to transmit, and did not care for the hadith scholars. We could read to him only with great effort and repeated intercessions. He had married the daughter of Imām al-Ḥaramayn Abū al-Maʿālī, and he was one of the jurists. He alone possessed the transmission of the Muwattaʾ and the booklet of Ibn Nugayd.”