I say: He was well into his nineties, yet I have brought his biography forward because of his precedence and distinction. For that very reason I remain undecided about where to place a middle-aged scholar who died long ago vis-à-vis a long-lived one whose death came later.

236 – Al-Khushī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Asad
The Imām, master ḥāfiẓ, eminent authority, and shaykh of Khurasan: Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Asad al-Isfarāyinī, known as al-Khushī—spelled with a wāw; some pronounce it al-Khashshī.

He heard (hadith) from al-Fuḍayl ibn ʿIyāḍ, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Baqiyyah ibn al-Walīd, Ismāʿīl ibn ʿUlayyah, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, Marwān ibn Muʿāwiyah al-Fazārī, and their peers.

Those who narrated from him include Abū Ḥātim al-Rāzī, Ibrāhīm al-Ḥarbī, Abū Aḥmad Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Ṣāghānī, Abū Muḥammad al-Dārimī, Yaḥyā ibn al-Dhuhlī, Abū Labīd Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Sarkhasī, and others.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: “My father heard from him in Mecca in the year 216 AH. When asked about him, he replied, ‘He is truthful.’” (1)

Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim remarked: “He was one of the pillars of hadith. When Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh heard of his death, he went in to the governor Ibn Ṭāhir and said, ‘May Allah reward you for (the loss of) half of Khurasan.’”

Al-Khaṭīb and others likewise said, “He was trustworthy.” (2)