returning from the pilgrimage, and he was a little over ninety years old.
I say: a number of his higher-level isnāds appear in the Juzʾ of Ibn al-Furāt (1), the Juzʾ al-Jābirī (2), and the Musnad of ʿAbd.
166 – Azhar ibn Saʿd, Abū Bakr al-Bāhilī * (Kh, M, D, T, S)
The imam, ḥāfiẓ, authoritative proof, and distinguished scholar—Abū Bakr al-Bāhilī, a freedman of that tribe, from Basra, known as “the oil-seller.”
He narrated ḥadith from Sulaymān al-Taymī, Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd, ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAwn, Qurrah ibn Khālid, and a host of others, and he enjoyed remarkable standing.
Those who transmitted from him include ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, Aḥmad [ibn Ḥanbal], Bundār, Muḥammad ibn al-Muthannā, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī, Aḥmad ibn al-Furāt, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, al-Kudaymī, and many others.
Among his contemporaries who reported from him was ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak. When Ibn ʿAwn lay dying, he made a bequest in Azhar’s favour. Azhar was truly one of the vessels of knowledge.
(1) Ahmad ibn al-Furat, the ḥāfiẓ, Abū Masʿūd al-Rāzī, was one of the leading authorities; he travelled widely and was considered the equal of Abū Zurʿa in powers of memorisation. He compiled a Musnad and a Tafsīr, and said: “I have written down one million five hundred thousand ḥadiths.” He died in 258/872. Source: al-ʿIbar 2/16.
(2) ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Isḥāq al-Mawṣilī, author of the well-known fascicle and teacher of the ḥāfiẓ Abū Nuʿaym, died in 360/971.
(*) References: Ibn Saʿd, Ṭabaqāt 7/294; Khalīfa ibn Khayyāṭ, Tārīkh p. 472 and Ṭabaqāt no. 1919; al-Bukhārī, al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr 1/460; Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿārif p. 513; al-ʿUqaylī, al-Ḍuʿafāʾ fol. 48; Ibn Abī Ḥātim, al-Jarḥ wa-l-Taʿdīl 2/315; Ibn Ḥibbān, Mashāhīr ʿUlamāʾ al-Amṣār no. 1279; al-Mizzī, Tahdhīb al-Kamāl fol. 76; al-Dhahabī, Tadhhīb al-Tahdhīb 1/50/1, al-ʿIbar 1/339, Mīzān al-Iʿtidāl 1/172, Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ 1/342, and al-Kāshif 1/102; Ibn Ḥajar, Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb 1/202 and Khulāṣat Tahdhīb al-Kamāl p. 25; al-Dhahabī, Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥuffāẓ p. 143.