29 – ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī Sulaymān al-ʿArzamī * (cited by al-Bukhārī in al-Taʾrīkh; Muslim transmits four hadiths from him)

The Imām, the ḥāfiẓ (hadith master), Abū Muḥammad. Some say his kunya was Abū ʿAbd Allāh, and others Abū Sulaymān al-ʿArzamī (1), the Kufan.

He took up residence in the burial ground of ʿArzam and was therefore linked to it. ʿArzam, it is said, was the name of a black man. Abū Sulaymān’s given name was Maysarah.

He related hadith from Anas ibn Mālik, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, ʿAṭāʾ, Anas ibn Sīrīn, Abū al-Zubayr, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Kaysān, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Aʿyan, Muslim ibn Yannāq, Zubayd al-Yāmī, Salamah ibn Kuhayl, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAṭāʾ, and Abū Ḥamzah al-Yamānī. The author of Tahdhīb al-Kamāl mentions no one beyond these.

Among those who transmitted from him were Sufyān al-Thawrī, Zāʾidah, Ibn al-Mubārak, ʿĪsā ibn Yūnus, ʿAlī ibn Mushir, Hushaym, Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, Khālid ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, Isḥāq ibn Yūsuf, Ibn Numayr, Ibn Fuḍayl, Yazīd ibn Hārūn, Yaʿlā ibn ʿUbayd, and many others—the last of them to pass away was ʿAbd al-Razāq. He was not a copious narrator, yet he was renowned for the strength of his memory.

Ibn al-Madīnī relates, on the authority of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, that Shuʿbah used to marvel at ʿAbd al-Malik’s memorisation.

Nawfal ibn al-Muṭahhar reported from Ibn al-Mubārak, from Sufyān, who said: “The foremost memorisers among people are Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid, ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Abī Sulaymān, and Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī.

“And the foremost memorisers of the Basrans are three: Sulaymān al-Taymī, ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal, and Dāwūd ibn Abī Hind—ʿĀṣim being the strongest of them in retention.”