The seventh tier: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sarrāj and ʿUbayd Allāh ibn al-Akhnas.
The eighth tier: Ibn Isḥāq, Usāmah ibn Zayd, ʿUmar ibn Muḥammad, Ṣakhr ibn Juwayriyyah, Hammām ibn Yaḥyā, and Hishām ibn Saʿd.
The ninth tier: Layth ibn Abī Sulaym, Ḥajjāj ibn Arṭāh, Ashʿath ibn Sawwār, and ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar.
The tenth tier: Isḥāq ibn Abī Farwah, Abū Maʿshar, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Nāfiʿ, ʿUthmān al-Burrī, and a number of others.

Al-Bukhārī said: “The soundest chains of transmission are those of Mālik, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar.” (1)

ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar said: “ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz sent Nāfiʿ, the freedman of Ibn ʿUmar, to the people of Egypt so that he might teach them the Sunnah.”

Al-Aṣmaʿī reported: al-ʿUmari related to us, from Nāfiʿ, who said, “I entered with my master to see ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar, and he offered him twelve thousand on my account. My master refused, and he set me free—may Allah set him free.”

Zayd ibn Abī Unaysah narrated from Nāfiʿ, who said: “I travelled with Ibn ʿUmar on thirty-odd pilgrimages and lesser pilgrimages.”

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “When Sālim and Nāfiʿ differ, I give precedence to neither over the other.”

Ibn Wahb said: Mālik stated, “I used to visit Nāfiʿ when I was still young, accompanied by a small servant of mine. He would sit and relate hadith to me. He was self-effacing, and during the lifetime of Sālim he issued no legal rulings at all.”