then: Yaḥyā ibn Ādam, ʿAffān, al-Shāfiʿī, and a group of others.
then: Aḥmad, Isḥāq, Abū ʿUbayd, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, and Ibn Maʿīn.
then: Abū Muḥammad al-Dārimī, Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Bukhārī, and other leading authorities in scholarship and independent reasoning.
Dalaj al-Sijzī said: “Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Barāʾ narrated to us; I heard ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd Allāh say:
‘I examined the matter and found that the chains of transmission revolve around six men — that is, the sound isnāds.’
He said: ‘For the people of Madinah: Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhrī.
For the people of Mecca: ʿAmr ibn Dīnār.
For the people of Basrah: Qatādah and Yaḥyā ibn Abī Kathīr.
For the people of Kufah: Abū Isḥāq and al-Aʿmash.’
‘The knowledge of these six then passed to the compilers of the written collections, those who authored books:
From Madinah: Mālik and Ibn Isḥāq.
From Mecca: Ibn Jurayj and Ibn ʿUyaynah.
From Basrah: Ibn Abī ʿArūbah, Ḥammād ibn Salamah, Shuʿbah, Abū ʿAwanah, and Maʿmar — and Maʿmar heard from all six.
From Kufah: Sufyān al-Thawrī.
From greater Syria: al-Awzāʿī.
From Wāsiṭ: Hushaym.’
I say: He overlooked Ḥammād ibn Zayd and al-Layth, yet they are in no way inferior to the men he listed.
He continued: ‘The learning of those men then reached Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī, and Yaḥyā ibn Ādam.’
I add: He forgot Ibn al-Mubārak, Wakīʿ, and Ibn Wahb, and they are oceans of knowledge.
We have obtained, with a high-level isnād, the book Al-Kharāj (1) by Yaḥyā ibn Ādam.