Muhammad ibn Ḥanbal ibn Hilāl ibn Asad ibn Idrīs ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Ḥayyān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Anas ibn ʿAwf ibn Qāsiṭ ibn Māzin ibn Shaybān ibn Dhuhl ibn Thaʿlaba ibn ʿUkāba ibn Saʿb ibn ʿAlī ibn Bakr ibn Wāʾil al-Dhuhlī, al-Shaybānī, originally of Marw and later of Baghdad—one of the foremost Imams.
This, precisely, is how his son ʿAbd Allāh set down his lineage, and it is the version adopted by Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb in his History and by others.
Al-Ḥāfiẓ Abū Muḥammad ibn Abī Ḥātim said in his book The Merits of Aḥmad:
‘Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad narrated to us: “I found my father’s genealogy recorded in his own hand. He traced it back as far as Māzin—as mentioned above—then wrote: ‘son of Hudhayl ibn Shaybān ibn Thaʿlaba ibn ʿUkāba.’ Thus he wrote Hudhayl—yet this is an error (1). He then added, after Wāʾil: ‘son of Qāsiṭ ibn Hinb ibn Afṣā ibn Duʿmī ibn Jadīla ibn Asad ibn Rabīʿa ibn Nizār ibn Maʿadd ibn ʿAdnān ibn Udd ibn Udad ibn al-Humaysaʿ ibn Nābit ibn Qaydār ibn Ishmael ibn Abraham—may Allah’s blessings be upon him.”’
Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī said: ‘Ṣāliḥ ibn Aḥmad narrated to us and mentioned the lineage, stating therein “Dhuhl”—which is the correct form.’
This same wording was also transmitted by Isḥāq al-Ghasīlī from Ṣāliḥ.
As for the statement of ʿAbbās al-Dūrī and Abū (2) Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd that Imām Aḥmad