Salamah also said, “I truly marvel at al-Farrāʾ: how can he hold al-Kisāʾī in such esteem when he himself surpasses him in grammar?”
Al-Farrāʾ passed away on the road to the pilgrimage in 207 AH, at the age of sixty-three—may Allah have mercy on him.
13 – Hawdhah ibn Khalifah ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Thaqafī* (Q)
The Imām, traditionist, and leading transmitter of Baghdad: Abū al-Ashhab Hawdhah ibn Khalifah ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Bakrah Nafiʿ al-Thaqafī, al-Bakrawī, al-Baṣrī, known as “the Deaf,” who took up residence in Baghdad.
He was born in the early 120s AH.
He transmitted hadith from: Sulaymān al-Taymī, Ashʿath ibn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Ḥumrānī, ʿAwf al-Aʿrābī, Ibn ʿAwn, Yūnus ibn ʿUbayd, Hishām ibn Ḥassān, Abū Ḥanīfah, Ibn Jurayj, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿUmārah, and others.
A man of hadith and deep learning, most of his notebooks were unfortunately lost, so he related only what remained with him.
Among those who narrated from him are: Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah, ʿAbbās al-Dūrī, Muḥammad ibn Saʿd, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Mukharrimī, Yaʿqūb al-Dawraqī, Abū Zurʿah al-Dimashqī— not al-Rāzī—Abū Ḥātim, and Ibrāhīm