Al-Bayhaqī said, “Another version has reached us from Yaḥyā in mursal form, linked only to Saʿīd al-Maqburī.”
I comment: “The fully connected chain is strong, yet a trustworthy narrator may still err.”
Muḥammad ibn Ghailān related: “I heard Abū Usāmah say,
‘In his day ʿUmar was the foremost authority among the people, a scholar of comprehensive mastery. After him, in his own era, that position belonged to Ibn ʿAbbās; after him, in his time, to al-Shaʿbī; after him, to Sufyān al-Thawrī; and after al-Thawrī, to Yaḥyā ibn Ādam.’ (1)
I add: “Yaḥyā ibn Ādam was indeed one of the great Imams qualified for independent reasoning (ijtihād), and ʿUmar was, as Abū Usāmah said, the leading authority of his generation.
Then came: ʿAlī, Ibn Masʿūd, Muʿādh, and Abū al-Dardāʾ;
then, in their period: Zayd ibn Thābit, ʿĀʾishah, Abū Mūsā, and Abū Hurayrah;
then: Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn ʿUmar;
then: ʿAlqamah, Masrūq, Abū Idrīs, and Ibn al-Musayyib;
then: ʿUrwah, al-Shaʿbī, al-Ḥasan, Ibrāhīm al-Nakhaʿī, Mujāhid, Ṭāwūs, and several others;
then: al-Zuhrī, ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Qatādah, and Ayyūb;
then: al-Aʿmash, Ibn ʿAwn, Ibn Jurayj, and ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿUmar;
then: al-Awzāʿī, Sufyān al-Thawrī, Maʿmar, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Shuʿbah;
then: Mālik, al-Layth, Ḥammād ibn Zayd, and Ibn ʿUyaynah;
then: Ibn al-Mubārak, Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān, Wakīʿ, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and Ibn Wahb."