- Abu al-ʿAlāʾ al-Hamdānī, al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad
The Imām, ḥāfiẓ, Qurʾān-reciter, Shaykh al-Islām—Abu al-ʿAlāʾ al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Sahl ibn Salamah ibn ʿUthkal ibn Isḥāq ibn Ḥanbal al-Hamadhānī, known as “the druggist,” was the uncontested shaykh of Hamadhān.
Birth. He was born in Dhū al-Ḥijjah 488 AH.
Early study. His first formal audition of ḥadīth was in 495 AH. After that he heard from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Ḥamd al-Dūnī and many others in Hamadhān.
In Baghdad he studied under Abū al-Qāsim ibn Bayān, Abū ʿAlī ibn Nabḥān, Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Mahdī, and their peers.
In Isfahān he heard from Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād, Maḥmūd al-Ashqar, and a number of others.
He read the Qurʾān in many transmissions with al-Ḥaddād, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Bāriʿ, Abū Bakr al-Mazrafī, and others.
He then journeyed to Khurāsān and studied with Muḥammad ibn al-Faḍl al-Furāwī (1) the text of Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim. He continued traveling in pursuit of knowledge, listening to ḥadīth himself and having his children do the same.
His last trip to Baghdad took place after the year 540 AH. There he had his children read to Abū al-Faḍl al-Urmawī, Ibn Nāṣir, and Ibn al-Zāghūnī, and at that time he himself narrated and taught.