193 – al-Sabakhī, Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn ʿUthmān*
The shaykh, imam, jurist, ascetic, and transmitter of hadith, Abū Ṭāhir (1) Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr ibn ʿUthmān ibn Muḥammad al-Sabakhī, al-Bazdawī, al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣābūnī, the Ḥanafī.
In his youth he listened to the long-lived ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Zubayrī al-Warkī, along with other shaykhs.
He kept company with the ascetic Yūsuf ibn Ayyūb.
Among those who narrated from him were al-Samʿānī and his son Abū al-Muẓaffar.
He died in Bukhārā in Jumādā al-Ūlā of the year five hundred and fifty-five (2) AH.
I have recorded him here only for the sake of differentiation, for both al-Sinjī and al-Sabakhī were among the teachers of Abū al-Muẓaffar al-Samʿānī and of his father.
194 – al-Shahrastānī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Aḥmad**
Al-Afḍal, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Aḥmad al-Shahrastānī, Abū al-Fatḥ,
(*) Al-Tahbir, 2/258–259; Al-Ansab, 7/28; Muʿjam al-Buldan, 3/183; Al-Lubab, 2/99; Al-Mushtabih, 1/348; Tabaqat al-Subki, 6/188; Al-Jawahir al-Mudiyyah, 2/35; Tabsir al-Muntabih, 2/719.
The nisba as-Sabkhi is written with an unpointed sin, a single open ba, and a dotted kha, exactly as in the autograph copy, Al-Ansab, Al-Lubab, Al-Jawahir al-Mudiyyah, and Tabsir al-Muntabih. In Al-Mushtabih, 348, however, the author vocalised it as as-Sabhi, with a dhamma on the sin, a fathah on the ba, and an unpointed ha; Ibn Hajar objected, noting that al-Samʿani himself wrote it with two fathahs and a dotted kha, and "he is better informed about his own shaykh.”
The nisba refers to tanning in a sabkha, i.e. saline soil in which nothing grows.
In Tabaqat al-Subki it was mistakenly printed as as-Sanjī, with a nun and a jim.
(1) Al-Tahbir adds: “Some say: Abu ʿAbd Allah,” which is also what appears in Al-Ansab.
(2) Al-Tahbir, 2/259, omits the word “fifty,” so that the year of death appears as 505 instead of 555. The book’s editor remarks that Al-Jawahir al-Mudiyyah agrees with Al-Tahbir, but this is incorrect; Al-Jawahir matches the date given here.
(* *) Tarikh Hukamaʾ al-Islam, 141–144; Al-Tahbir, 2/160, 162; Muʿjam al-Buldan =