Muḥammad ibn Nubayh al-Sahmī, the Qurashī, the Madanī, long-time resident of Baghdad and one of the last remaining musnid authorities.
He narrated from Mālik ibn Anas—through the Muwaṭṭaʾ (1)—and was in fact the final transmitter to relate directly from Mālik; he also reported from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Zinād, Muslim ibn Khālid al-Zanjī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn Muḥammad al-Darāwurdī, Ḥātim ibn Ismāʿīl, and a number of others.
He eventually stood alone as the surviving transmitter from those teachers, and he lived exactly one hundred years.
Among those who narrated from him were: Ibn Mājah, Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn Abī ʿIṣmah, Ismāʿīl ibn al-ʿAbbās al-Warraq, Ibn Khuzaymah—who later abandoned him—Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Mahamili, Muḥammad ibn Makhlad, and others.
Al-Mahamili (2) said: “I heard my father remark, ‘I asked Abū Muṣʿab about Abū Ḥudhāfah, and he replied, “He used to attend with us the reading sessions before Mālik (3).”’”
Al-Dāraqutnī stated, “His audition from Mālik is sound.”
(1) In Tanwir al-Hawalik 1/9, the hadith scholar Salah al-Din al-Alaʾi notes that many groups transmitted the Muwatta from Malik and that their versions vary in sequence, additions, and omissions. The most extensive recension is that of al-Qanabi, while one of the largest and richest in supplementary material is that of Abu Musab; Ibn Hazm observes that Abu Musab’s Muwatta contains about one hundred hadiths more than the other recensions. Qadi Iyad lists, in Tartib al-Madarik 1/202–203, the leading and reliable transmitters of the Muwatta, a list also reproduced by al-Laknawi in al-Taʿliq al-Mumajjad, p. 18 ff. Of these recensions, only two are currently in print: that of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Masmudi al-Laythi (d. 234 AH) and that of Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani, the disciple of Imam Abu Hanifa (d. 189 AH).
(2) Pronounced with fath on the mim and ha, sukun on the alif, and kasr on the mim and lam; the nisba refers to the mahamil (litter chairs) used to carry people. It designates the judge Abu ʿAbd Allah al-Husayn ibn Ismaʿil ibn Muhammad al-Mahamili (d. 330 AH), whose biography will appear in volume 15 of this work.
(3) Tarikh Baghdad 4/24; Tahdhib al-Kamal 17.