In al-Andalus, Abu al-Rabiʿ Sulayman ibn Musa ibn Salim ibn Hassan al-Himyari—known as al-Kalaʿi, the Valencian—was born in 565 AH. He became one of the leading imams of hadith.
Abu ʿAbd Allah Ibn al-Abbar mentions him in his History ⦗1⦘:
“He studied in Valencia under Abu al-ʿAṭāʾ ibn Nadhir and Abu al-Hajjaj ibn Ayyub. Later he travelled and heard hadith from Abu Bakr ibn al-Jadd, Abu al-Qasim ibn Hubaysh, Abu ʿAbd Allah ibn Zarqun, Abu Muhammad ibn Bunuh, Abu al-Walid ibn Rushd, Abu Muhammad ibn al-Faras, Abu ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿArus, Abu Muhammad ibn Jahwar, Abu al-Hasan Najba ibn Yahya, and many others besides them ⦗2⦘.
He also received authorisations from Abu al-Abbas ibn Madaʾ and from Abu Muhammad ʿAbd al-Haqq al-Azdi, the author of Al-Ahkam, and he devoted the utmost care to annotation and transmission.
Ibn al-Abbar adds ⦗3⦘: “He was an imam in the discipline of hadith—keen-sighted in it, vast in learning, and an outstanding memoriser.”
= Ibn al-Abbar (Azharī copy), vol. 3, fols. 109–110 – the source on which al-Dhahabī relied for most of the present entry; al-Marākushī, al-Dhayl wa-t-Takmila li-Kitābay al-Mawṣūl wa-’s-Ṣila, 4/83–95, entry 203; al-Dhahabī, Tārīkh al-Islām (Aya Sofya MS 3012) vol. 19, fol. 148; idem, Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ, 4/1417–1420, entry 1135; idem, al-ʿIbar, 5/137–138; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi-’l-Wafayāt, 15/432–436, entry 585; Fawāt al-Wafayāt, 2/80, entry 182; al-Fayūmī, Nathr al-Jumān, vol. 2, fols. 79–80; al-Marqaba al-ʿUlyā fī man Yastaḥiq al-Qaḍāʾ wa-’l-Fatwā, p. 119; Ibn Farḥūn, al-Dībāj al-Mudhahhab, 1/385–388, entry 8; al-Nujūm al-Zāhira, 6/298; al-Ḥimyarī, Ṣifat Jazīrat al-ʿArab, p. 32; Shadharāt al-Dhahab, 5/164; Shajarat al-Nūr al-Zakiyya, 1/180, entry 588; al-Risāla al-Mustatrafa, p. 198.
(1) Takmila li-Kitāb al-Ṣila (Azharī copy), vol. 3, fol. 109.
(2) The base manuscript reads “wa khalaq” (“and a host of people”), a copyist’s slip.
(3) I.e. these words are those of Ibn al-Abbar; Takmila li-Kitāb al-Ṣila, vol. 3, fol. 109.