ibn Yaḥyā al-Baṣrī—though there is some disagreement about this attribution—Suwayd ibn Ibrāhīm al-Ḥannāṭ al-Baṣrī; Abū Bakr al-Hudhalī al-Baṣrī—others say he was a Sulamī; Abū ʿAqīl Yaḥyā ibn al-Mutawakkil al-Baṣrī; Abū Hilāl Muḥammad ibn Sulaym al-Rāsibī al-Baṣrī; Dāwūd ibn Abī al-Furāt al-Baṣrī; Abū al-Rabīʿ Ashʿath al-Sammān al-Baṣrī; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muslim al-Qismallī al-Baṣrī; together with a number of other scholars in Basra. Hence, that year came to be known as the year in which the scholars of Basra were lost.

In the same year there also died: the senior scholar of Damascus, Saʿīd ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Tanūkhī (1), the jurist; the senior scholar of Alexandria, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Shurayḥ (2); the ḥadith scholar of Kūfah, Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥah ibn Muṣarrif (3); the governor of Kūfah, ʿĪsā ibn Mūsā al-ʿAbbāsī (4); and Bashshār ibn Burd (5), the foremost poet of his age.

From the highest-level chains that reach me from him, I possess a little over ten ḥadiths, which I singled out long ago—in one of the years of the 690s AH.

Abū al-Maʿālī Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq in Egypt informed us; al-Mubārak ibn Abī al-Jūd in Baghdad informed us; Aḥmad ibn Abī Ghālib, the devotee, informed us; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAlī informed us; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Dhahabī informed us; ʿAbd Allāh al-Baghawī narrated to us; ʿAbd al-Aʿlā ibn Ḥammād al-Narsī narrated to us; Ḥammād ibn Salamah narrated to us, from Thābit, from Abū Rāfiʿ, from Abū Hurayrah:

The Prophet ﷺ said, “A man once set out to visit a brother of his in another village. Allah stationed an angel along his road. When the man reached him, the angel asked, ‘Where are you going?’ He replied, ‘I am going to visit a brother of mine in such-and-such village.’ The angel asked, ‘Is there some favour he has done for you that you wish to repay?’ He answered, ‘No, except that…’”