and Aḥmad ibn Khulayd al-Ḥalabī, Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Samāʿah al-Ḥaḍramī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Sawṭī (1), Aḥmad ibn Mūsā al-Ḥammār, Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Qattāt (2), Ismāʿīl ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Māhān al-Muzanī, Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad al-Aḥmasī, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Jaʿfar al-Washshāʾ, and many others besides them.
His younger pupils survived until well after 300 AH.
ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak—though earlier in rank—transmitted from him, and there were one hundred and twenty years between his death and that of al-Qattāt.
It appears that he was the last trustworthy narrator to relate directly from al-Aʿmash.
Abū Nuʿaym said, “I shared with Sufyān al-Thawrī more than forty teachers.” (3)
Hanbal ibn Isḥāq reported that Abū Nuʿaym said, “I wrote down hadith from more than one hundred and ten shaykhs from whom Sufyān had also taken narration.”
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdah ibn Sulaymān recounted: “I was with Abū Nuʿaym when the hadith scholars asked him, ‘Abū Nuʿaym, are these the only reports you carried from al-Aʿmash?’ He replied, ‘And what was I to al-Aʿmash? I was a monkey without a tail.’” (4)
Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: “I asked my father, ‘Wakīʿ, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, and Yazīd ibn Hārūn—how does Abū Nuʿaym compare with them?’ He answered, ‘His narrations amount to about half of theirs, yet he is clever and scrupulous about accuracy.’
I said, ‘So Abū Nuʿaym is more reliable…’