al-Khayr Yaḥyā ibn Sālim al-ʿImrānī, author of al-Bayān fī al-Madhhab. (1)
256 – al-Bāghbān Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Iṣbahānī *
The long-lived shaykh, an eminent and highly reliable authority, Abū al-Khayr Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Qāsim ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAlī ibn Isḥāq ibn Sandār al-Iṣbahānī, known as al-Muqaddir (2), the engineer, the muʾadhdhin, the Ṣūfī—he became famous as “al-Bāghbān.”
He was born in the mid-460s AH.
He heard ḥadith from Abū ʿAmr ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Mandah, Abū ʿĪsā ibn Ziyād, Abū Bakr ibn Mājah, al-Muṭahhar al-Buzānī, Abū al-Ṭayyib Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Sallah—the disciple of Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Baghdādī—the erudite Abū Naṣr ibn al-Ṣabbāgh on the Risāliyya, Abū Manṣūr ibn Shakruwayh, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Simsār, Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Qaffāl, and Ḥakīm ibn Muḥammad al-Isfarāyīnī. He heard from him the Musnad of al-Shāfiʿī. My maternal grandfather ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Saqqāʾ related this to us.
He lectured on ḥadith in the presence of the ḥadith-master Abū al-ʿAlāʾ al-ʿAṭṭār in Hamadhān and in Isfahan.
Among those who narrated from him were al-Samʿānī, Jāmiʿ ibn Khumārṭāsh, and Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn