- Abū Kurayb, Muḥammad ibn al-ʿAlāʾ ibn Kurayb al-Hamdānī
A ḥāfiẓ, reliable imām, and the foremost teacher of the ḥadīth scholars—Abū Kurayb al-Hamdānī of Kūfah.
He was born in 161 AH.
He transmitted ḥadīth from Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh, Hushaym, Yaḥyā ibn Abī Zāʾidah, Ibn al-Mubārak, ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn Sulaymān, ʿUmar ibn ʿUbayd, Abū Khālid al-Aḥmar, Abū Muʿāwiyah, Ibn ʿUlayyah, Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, Ḥafṣ ibn Ghiyāth, Ibn Idrīs, ʿAbdah ibn Sulaymān, ʿUbayd Allāh al-Ashjaʿī, ʿAbd Allāh ibn al-Ajlaḥ, Ḥakkām ibn Salm, Shuʿayb ibn Isḥāq, Zayd ibn al-Ḥabbāb, Muḥammad ibn Abī ʿUbaydah ibn Maʿn, Yaḥyā ibn Yamān, Muʿtamir ibn Sulaymān, and many others.
On a lower tier he also narrated from Ṭalq ibn Ghannām and Khālid ibn Makhlad al-Qaṭawānī.
Abū Kurayb compiled and collected works and travelled extensively in pursuit of ḥadīth.
Those who reported from him include the six canonical compilers, Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā adh-Dhuhlī, Abū Zurʿah, Abū Ḥātim, Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, ʿUthmān ibn Khurrāzād, Mūsā ibn Isḥāq, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Khirrāsh, Zakariyyā “the tailor of the Sunnah,” Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Marwazī—al-Nasāʾī also transmitted from these two—Muṭayyin, Jaʿfar al-Firyābī, Abū Yaʿlā, Ibrāhīm ibn Maʿqil, Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq ibn Buhlūl, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-Tustarī, Isḥāq ibn Ibrāhīm al-Bushtī, and Badr ibn