Mihrān—the venerable shaykha, exceedingly long-lived, the chief musnida of Isfahān, Umm Hānī al-Isfahāniyyah, al-Fārfāniyyah (1) — with two fā’s.
She was born in 510 AH.
She was the last person to relate by direct audition from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Muḥammad al-Dashtajī (2). She also heard from Ḥamzah ibn al-ʿAbbās al-ʿAlawī, Isḥāq ibn Aḥmad al-Ushnānī, and Fāṭimah al-Juzdāniyyah; from the latter she obtained the complete Muʿjam al-Kabīr, the Muʿjam al-Ṣaghīr (3), and al-Fitan by Nuʿaym ibn Ḥammād, and Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥaddād (4) granted her an ijāza.
I too heard from Jaʿfar ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Thaqafī, and with her the chains of transmission reached their loftiest heights.
Those who issued her an ijāza from Baghdad were: Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Mahdī, Abū al-Ghanāʾim ibn al-Muhtadī biʾllāh, Abū Saʿd ibn al-Ṭuyūrī, Abū Ṭālib al-Yūsufī, and a number of others (5).
… and in: Tarikh al-Islam, 18/1/226; al-Ibar, 5/17; al-Nujum al-Zahira, 6/200; Shadharat al-Dhahab, 5/19–20.
The editor of al-Ibar vocalised her name in the diminutive form, *Ufayfa*, which appears to be an error: we have never seen it so recorded, the manuals on problematic names do not mention it, and no supporting evidence is provided.
(1) Her nisba goes back to Farfan, a village near Isfahan. Al-Zaki al-Mundhiri, in his *Takmila*, vocalises it as: fa (open), ra (silent), alif, fa (open), alif (silent), final nun; Yaqūt, however, reads it with a kasra on the ra.
(2) Abd al-Wahid al-Dashtaji was the last person to narrate from the hadith master Abu Nuaym; he died in Rabi al-Awwal 518/1124.
(3) i.e. the two works by al-Tabarani.
(4) Abu Ali al-Haddad died in 515/1121.
(5) Al-Dhahabi notes in *Tarikh al-Islam*: “I transcribed her Baghdadi ijaza from the autograph of our shaykh al-Mizzi.”