230 – Ibn al-Sarraj, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Anṣārī
The shaykh, scholar, ḥadith transmitter, reliable authority, centenarian, and musnid of the Maghreb; Abū al-Ḥusayn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Qāsim, known as Ibn al-Sarraj al-Anṣārī, from Seville.

Birth: 560 AH (1).

He studied under his maternal uncle Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Khayr, the ḥadith master Abū al-Qāsim Ibn Bashkuwāl, ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq ibn Būnah, and Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Zarqūn; he went on to transmit from them. He also narrated from Abū Bakr Ibn al-Jadd, Abū Muḥammad Ibn ʿUbayd Allāh, Abū al-Qāsim al-Sharrāṭ, and Abū Zayd al-Suhaylī, from whom he related most extensively. From al-Suhaylī he received the Muwaṭṭaʾ, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, and al-Rawḍ al-Unuf. He transmitted a large corpus—some of it unique to him—so that students journeyed to him throughout the Western lands, and the foremost ḥuffāẓ took narrations from him.

Ibn al-Sarraj says in his “Program”: “I met Ibn Bashkuwāl in Córdoba and heard from him several collections, among them the Tafsīr of al-Nasāʾī, which he had received from Abū Muḥammad Ibn ʿAṭṭāb—related to us by Ḥātim ibn Muḥammad, from al-Qābisī, from Ḥamzah al-Kinānī, from him—as well as his book al-Ṣilah and other works.”

I (the author) say: He was trustworthy and of fine character.

Among those who narrated from him was Abū al-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā ibn al-Ḥājj al-Maʿāfirī, who took from him al-Rawḍ al-Unuf; in 718 AH Ibn Jābir al-Wādiyāshī (2) received that work from him.