He narrated the Muwaṭṭaʾ with one of the loftiest living chains: only six transmitters stood between him and Imām Mālik, each one having an unbroken audition. The same number of intermediaries occurs in the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Yaḥyā ibn Bukayr as received by Mukram ibn Abī al-Ṣaqr al-Bazzāz; in the recension of al-Qaʿnabī as received by the two Muwaffaqs— Ibn Qudāmah and ʿAbd al-Laṭīf— and by Ibn al-Khayr; in the recension of Abū Muṣʿab as received by Abū Naṣr ibn al-Shīrāzī and Ibn al-Burhān; and in the recension of Suwayd ibn Saʿīd as received by al-Bahāʾ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.

157 – Ibn al-Barraj, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Aḥmad al-Baghdādī
The righteous, virtuous, and reliable shaykh, Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Barraj al-Baghdādī, a Sufi and legal agent.

He studied the entire Sunan of al-Nasāʾī—meaning the abridged collection (1)—under Abū Zurʿah al-Maqdisī. He also heard the Bānyās fascicle from Abū al-Fatḥ ibn al-Baṭṭī, and the book Akhbār Makkah by al-Azraqī from Aḥmad ibn al-Muqarrab.

Among those who transmitted from him were al-Sayf ibn al-Majd, ʿUmar ibn al-Ḥājib, Taqī al-Dīn ibn al-Wāsiṭī, Shams al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Zayn, al-Jamāl Muḥammad ibn al-Dabbāb, and a number of others. Fāṭimah bint Sulaymān also conveyed from him to us by written licence.

Ibn al-Ḥājib said, “He was a pious man, much given to Qurʾānic recitation and silence; he would scarcely speak except to answer a question. I heard from him most of the Sunan.”