Abu ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Hanẓalī, their freedman, of Turkic stock and later a resident of Marw; a ḥāfiẓ, a veteran campaigner, and one of the outstanding luminaries—his mother was from Khwarizm.
He was born in 118 AH.
He began the quest for knowledge when he was twenty years old.
The first shaykh he ever met was al-Rabīʿ ibn Anas al-Khurāsānī; he contrived a way to enter the prison where the man was confined and heard from him about forty hadiths.
In 141 AH he set out on his travels, studying under the last remaining Successors. He journeyed far and wide, roaming the lands continually until the day he died—whether pursuing knowledge, participating in military expeditions, trading, spending on his brethren for the sake of Allah, or outfitting them to accompany him on the pilgrimage.
He heard hadith from: Sulaymān al-Taymī; ʿĀṣim al-Aḥwal; Ḥumayd al-Ṭawīl; Hishām ibn ʿUrwah; al-Jurayrī; Ismāʿīl ibn Abī Khālid; al-Aʿmash; Burayd ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Abī Burdah; Khālid al-Ḥadhdhāʾ; Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Anṣārī; ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAwn; Mūsā ibn ʿUqbah; Ajlaḥ al-Kindī; Ḥusayn al-Muʿallim; Ḥanẓalah al-Sadūsī; Ḥaywah ibn Shurayḥ al-Miṣrī; Kahmas; al-Awzāʿī; Abū Ḥanīfah; Ibn Jurayj; Maʿmar; al-Thawrī; Shuʿbah; Ibn Abī Dhīʾb; Yūnus al-Aylī; the two Ḥammāds; Mālik; al-Layth; and Ibn Lahīʿah,