Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shīrāzī, the ḥāfiẓ, said: “The man called al-Adanī is Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Adramī.”(1)
Ibrāhīm Nafṭawayh said: “Ḥāmid ibn al-ʿAbbās narrated to me, from a man, from al-Muhtadī, that al-Wāthiq died after repenting of the claim that the Quran is created.”
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Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ismāʿīl reported from his father, who said: “Around(2) five thousand people—sometimes as many as five thousand five hundred—would gather in Aḥmad’s circle; the scribes would be writing, while the remainder came merely to learn proper manners and dignified bearing from him.”
Ibn Baṭṭah related that he heard al-Najjād say: “I heard Abū Bakr ibn al-Muṭṭawwiʿī(3) say, ‘I frequented Abū ʿAbdullāh for twelve years while he was reading the Musnad to his sons, yet I did not write down a single hadith from him; I only observed his conduct and character.’”
Ḥumayd ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ruʾāsī said: “It is said that, of all the Companions, no one resembled the Prophet ﷺ more in guidance, composure, and outward bearing than Ibn Masʿūd, and he most closely…"
(1) The manuscript reads “al-Aādharmi,” with an extended hamza, but this is incorrect. On the basis of the biographical and orthographic sources we have adopted the correct form. The nisba goes back to Adhrama, a village near Nisibis. This al-Adhrami was a teacher of al-Nasaʾi and Abu Dawud; Abu Hatim and al-Nasaʾi considered him reliable, and Maslama said in his book al-Sila: “there is no objection to him.” See Tahdhib, 6/4–5.
(2) Lisan al-Arab explains that zuhaʾ al-shayʾ or zuhaʾuhu means “its approximate quantity.” One says: “They are about one hundred,” i.e., roughly that number. The phrase qawm dhu zuhaʾ refers to a large group; the verb zahawtu l-qawm means “I estimated their number.” The manuscript wrongly inserts the word “ʿala” between zuhaʾ and “five thousand.”
(3) Pronounced with ḍamma on the mīm, fatḥa on the doubled ṭāʾ, kasra on the wāw, and ending with a final ʿayn—mutawwiʿa—this nisba denotes the Mutawwiʿa: volunteers who dedicated themselves to offensive expeditions and the permanent defense of the frontier posts, seeking to fight the enemy in his own territory rather than only when he invaded Muslim lands.