among folk we count as part of the multitude—
yet once they are examined, they prove to be no folk at all.
Whenever I draw near, hoping to gain some benefit from them,
they forestall me with refusal before I can even ask.
They weep for me so much that I have wished
I might slip away from them, head for head. (1)

22 – Aḥmad ibn Ḥafṣ, Abū Ḥafṣ al-Bukhārī, the Ḥanafī*
The jurist, the erudite scholar, the Shaykh of Transoxiana (2), Abū Ḥafṣ al-Bukhārī the Ḥanafī, jurist of the East and father of the distinguished Shaykh of the Ḥanafīs, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Ḥafṣ, the jurist.

He travelled in search of knowledge, kept the company of Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan for a time, and excelled in legal reasoning.

He heard ḥadith from Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarāḥ, Abū Usāmah, and others of their rank.

Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Abī Rajāʾ al-Bukhārī said, “I heard Aḥmad ibn Ḥafṣ say:
‘I saw the Prophet ﷺ in a dream. He was wearing a shirt, and beside him stood a woman who was weeping. He said to her, “Do not weep; when I pass away, then weep.”’

“I could find no one to interpret it for me until Ismāʿīl, al-Bukhārī’s father, told me, ‘The sunnah will remain firmly established after him.’”

ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Adīb said, “I heard the poet Layth ibn Naṣr say:
‘We discussed the ḥadith: “At the head of every hundred years someone will be raised up who…’”