- Al-Shadhakūnī, Abū Ayyūb Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd
A scholar, ḥadīth master, and accomplished narrator: Abū Ayyūb Sulaymān ibn Dāwūd ibn Bishr al-Minqarī al-Baṣrī, known as al-Shadhakūnī—one of the ruined.
He studied under Ḥammād ibn Zayd, ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Ziyād, Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān, ʿAbd al-Wārith, Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān, and their contemporaries, transmitting from them in great profusion.
Among those who narrated from him are Abū Qilābah al-Raqāshī, Asīd ibn ʿĀṣim, al-Kudaymī, Abū Muslim al-Kajjī, Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥārith al-Aṣbahānī, al-Ḥasan ibn Sufyān, and Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī. The last two used to conceal his identity, saying, “Abū Ayyūb al-Minqarī narrated to us.”
He was also transmitted from by Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Faraqadī and other scholars of Isfahān.
ʿAmr al-Nāqid said: “When Sulaymān al-Shadhakūnī arrived in Baghdad, Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said to me, ‘Let us go to him so that we may learn from him the critique of narrators.’” ⦗1⦘
I say: It is calamity enough that he should be regarded as a leading critic of narrators while failing to critique himself.
Ḥanbal said: I heard Abū ʿAbd Allāh (Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal) say, “The most knowledgeable of us about narrators is Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn; the one with the best command of topical classifications is Sulaymān al-Shadhakūnī; and ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī has the strongest recall of the lengthy reports.” ⦗2⦘