of Sulaymān ibn Mujālid, whose family came from Tirmidh. He first lived in Baghdad, then moved to al-Maṣṣīṣah where he served on the frontier, and people journeyed to him from every quarter.

He learned from Ibn Jurayj—extensively and with great precision—

and from Yūnus ibn Abī Isḥāq, Ḥarīz ibn ʿUthmān, ʿUmar ibn Dharr, Shuʿbah, Ḥamzah al-Zayyāt, and others of their generation.

Those who reported from him include Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Isḥāq, Abū Khaythamah, Abū ʿUbaydah ibn Abī al-Safar, Abū Yaḥyā Ṣāʿiqah, Hārūn al-Ḥammāl, Yūsuf ibn Saʿīd ibn Muslim, Hilāl ibn al-ʿAlāʾ, and a great many more.

Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal spoke of him, saying, “How exact he was, how sound were his ḥadīths, and how diligently he safeguarded their wording!”

He praised him in the strongest terms and added, “He was a master of Arabic. He would never say, ‘Ibn Jurayj narrated to us’; rather, he himself read to Ibn Jurayj. Later he left off that practice, yet he continued to say, ‘Ibn Jurayj said.’ He had read the books to him and had heard from him the Book of Tafsīr as it was dictated.”(1)

Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī said, “Aḥmad and Ibn Maʿīn both travelled to Ḥajjāj al-Aʿwar. I have also heard that Yaḥyā wrote down from him nearly fifty thousand ḥadīths.”(2)

Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn declared, “He was the most accurate of Ibn Jurayj’s companions.”(3)

Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Sulamī al-Khushk remarked, “Ḥajjāj ibn Muḥammad asleep is more trustworthy than ʿAbd al-Razzāq awake.”(4)