Abu al-Hasan, ʿAli ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn Jaʿfar ibn Najīḥ ibn Bakr ibn Saʿd al-Saʿdī, their freedman, a native of Basra and popularly known as Ibn al-Madīnī—the client of ʿUrwa ibn ʿAṭiyya al-Saʿdī.
His father was a recognised transmitter of hadith, well known yet deemed lenient in his narrations; he died in 178 AH. He reported from ʿAbd Allah ibn Dīnār and others of the same generation among the scholars of Medina. His own father, Jaʿfar ibn Najīḥ, also narrated a small number of reports from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Qāsim al-Taymī.
ʿAli himself received hadith from his father; from Ḥammād ibn Zayd, Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān, Yazīd ibn Zurayʿ, ʿAbd al-Wārith, Hushaym ibn Bashīr, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Dārāwardī, Muʿtamar ibn Sulaymān, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Jarīr ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, al-Walīd ibn Muslim, Bishr ibn al-Muḍaffar, Ghundar, Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd, Khālid ibn al-Ḥārith, Muʿādh ibn Muʿādh, Ḥātim ibn Wardān, Ibn Wahb, ʿAbd al-Aʿlā al-Sāmī; as well as ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Abī Ḥāzim, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-ʿAmmī, ʿUmar ibn Ṭalḥa ibn ʿAlqama ibn Waqqāṣ al-Laythī, Fuḍayl ibn Sulaymān al-Numayrī, Muḥammad ibn Ṭalḥa al-Taymī, Marḥūm ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Muʿāwiya ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm, Yūsuf ibn al-Mājishūn, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Thaqafī, Hishām ibn Yūsuf, ʿAbd al-Razzaq, and numerous others.