- Abū Ghassān Mālik ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Dirham al-Nahdī
A ḥāfiẓ, an authoritative proof, an imām; Abū Ghassān al-Nahdī, their client, a Kufan, and the grandson of the jurist Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād ibn Abī Sulaymān.
He transmitted ḥadith from: Isrāʾīl; Waraqāʾ; ʿĪsā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī; Fuḍayl ibn Marzūq; al-Ḥasan ibn Ṣāliḥ; al-Ḥakam ibn ʿAbd al-Malik; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Ghasīl; ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn al-Mājishūn; Mindal ibn ʿAlī; Ḥibbān ibn ʿAlī; Abū Maʿshar al-Sindī; Yaḥyā ibn ʿUthmān al-Taymī; Zuhayr ibn Muʿāwiya—and many others.
Those who narrated from him include: al-Bukhārī; Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah; Yūsuf ibn Mūsā; Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā al-Dhuhlī; Hārūn al-Ḥammāl; Abū Isḥāq al-Jawzajānī; Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān al-Ruhāwī (1); Aḥmad ibn Mulāʿib; Salamah ibn Shabīb; Fahd ibn Sulaymān; Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣanʿānī; Abū Zurʿah; Abū Ḥātim; Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Ḥunaynī, and a great many others.
Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Dāwūd al-Baghdādī said: I heard Ibn Maʿīn say to Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, “If it pleases you to write from a man about whom your heart harbors no doubt,”