225 – al-Ṣaydalanī, Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Naṣr*

A venerable shaykh, trustworthy, long-lived, and the foremost musnid of his time: Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Naṣr ibn Abī al-Fatḥ Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Khāluwayh al-Isfahānī, known as al-Ṣaydalanī, the maternal grandson (sibṭ) of Ḥusayn ibn Mandah.

He was born on the eve of the Day of Sacrifice, in 509 AH.

At the age of three he was physically present at numerous sessions of Abū ʿAlī (1); he could have obtained direct audition from him, but the opportunity never materialised.

He also attended the gatherings of Maḥmūd ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ashqar, ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn ʿAlī Fawraja, Ḥamza ibn al-ʿAbbās, ʿAbd al-Jabbār ibn al-Faḍl al-Umayyī, Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Thaqafī, and Abū ʿAdnān Muḥammad ibn Abī Nizār.

He received from Fāṭima bint ʿAbd Allāh (2) the complete text of al-Ṭabarānī’s al-Muʿjam al-Kabīr when he was eleven years old, and he alone narrated from all the teachers just named apart from Fāṭima.

He was popularly known as “Silafa.”

Among those who transmitted from him were Shaykh al-Ḍiyāʾ—who reported from him copiously—Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-ʿUthmānī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ḥāfiẓ, Badal al-Tabrīzī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Zanjānī, Ibn Khalīl, Ḥasan ibn Yūnus, the grandson of Dāʾūd ibn Maʿmar, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yūsuf ibn al-Lamṭ, Abū al-Khaṭṭāb ibn Dihya, and many others.