and Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī, Yūsuf ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Ziyād al-Wāsiṭī, nicknamed al-Makhḍūb, one of the ḥuffāẓ, together with a large number of others.
His son Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad said, “I heard my father say, ‘I was born in 147 AH.’”
Ibn Ḥibbān declared him reliable, adding, “He occasionally errs,” and noted that he died in 238 AH.
Bahshal, however, said that he passed away in 239.
He (Bahshal) added, “He was a jurist and he used to dye his beard.”
In the Book of Prayer of al-Bukhārī it reads: “Muḥammad ibn Abān narrated to us; Ghundar narrated to us in two places.” (1)
Ibn ʿAdī said, “He is the Wāsiṭī.”
Al-Kalābādhī and others held that he was a Balkhī, yet al-Bukhārī, in his History, mentions only the Wāsiṭī and does not list the Balkhī because of his youth; he does not include all of his younger teachers.
42 – Isḥāq al-Nadīm, Abū Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Maymūn al-Mawṣilī*
The imām, the erudite scholar, the ḥāfiẓ, master of many disciplines—Abū Muḥammad Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm ibn
(1) The first report is found in al-Bukhari, 2/50, Book of the Prayer Times, chapter: “Do not deliberately pray just before sunset.” Its wording is: “Muhammad ibn Aban narrated to us; Ghundar narrated to us; Shuʿbah from Abu al-Tiyah, who said: I heard ʿImran ibn Aban relate from Muʿawiyah who said: ‘You are performing a prayer that we accompanied the Messenger of Allah—peace be upon him—yet never saw him perform, and he prohibited it,’ meaning the two rakʿahs after ʿasr.”
Al-Hafiz comments on the phrase “Muhammad ibn Aban narrated to us,” saying: “He is al-Balkhi; some say al-Wasiti. Each view has supporting evidence, and both men are reliable.”
The second report is also in al-Bukhari, 2/160, Book of Imamate, chapter: “Leading the prayer by one who is afflicted or an innovator.” Its wording is: “Muhammad ibn Aban narrated to us; Ghundar from Shuʿbah, from Abu al-Tiyah, who heard Anas ibn Malik say: The Prophet—peace be upon him—said to Abu Dharr: ‘Listen and obey, even if your leader is an Abyssinian whose head is like a raisin.’”
In his commentary here, al-Hafiz prefers the identification “al-Balkhi,” stating: “He is al-Balkhi, the scribe of Wakiʿ; some say al-Wasiti, which is possible, yet we have found no narration of al-Wasiti from Ghundar.”
(*) Sources: Tabaqat al-shuʿara, pp. 360, 362; Tarikh al-Tabari, 9:122–23; al-Aghani, 5:268, 435; al-Fihrist, 1:140; Tarikh Baghdad, 6:338, 345; Simt al-lali, pp. 137, 209.