Those who transmitted from him were: al-Bukhari—his narration appears in Jamiʿ al-Tirmidhi—Abu Zurʿah al-Razi, Ahmad ibn ʿAli al-Abbar, Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Balkhi, Abu al-ʿAbbas al-Sarraj, and others.
Al-Bukhari has likewise cited him in his Sahih, saying, “Al-Hasan related to us; Ismaʿil ibn al-Khalil al-Khazzaz related to us.” This occurs under his commentary on Surat al-Zumar (1), and it is said that this al-Hasan is the Balkhi.
Nasr ibn Zakariyya al-Marwazi reported: “I heard Qutaybah ibn Saʿid say, ‘The young men of Khurasan are four: Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil, ʿAbd Allah al-Dārimi, Zakariyya ibn Yahya al-Luʾluʾi, and al-Hasan ibn Shujaʿ al-Balkhi.’”
This account is sound, and it is also transmitted by al-Hasan ibn Hammad from Qutaybah.
Al-Hakim said: Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Qadi told me, on the authority of one of his teachers, that he heard ʿAbd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Hanbal say:
I asked, “Father, who are the ḥuffāẓ (leading hadith masters)?”
He replied, “My son, they were a group of young men from Khurasan who were with us, but they have now dispersed.”
I said, “Who are they?”
He replied, “Muhammad ibn Ismaʿil—that is, al-Bukhari; ʿUbayd Allah ibn ʿAbd—”
(1) 8/423: Chapter on the verse, “The trumpet will be blown and everyone in the heavens and on the earth will fall unconscious, except those whom Allah wills” (Quran 39:68).
Al-Bukhari relates: “Al-Hasan narrated to me; Ismail ibn Khalil narrated to me; Abd al-Rahim informed us, from Zakariya ibn Abi Zaida, from Amir, from Abu Hurayra, that the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘I shall be the first to raise his head after the final blast of the trumpet. There I will see Musa clinging to the Throne; I do not know whether he was already in that state or whether it occurred after the blast.’
Al-Hafiz (Ibn Hajar) remarks: In all the transmissions the name appears simply as ‘al-Hasan,’ without further identification. Abu Hatim Sahl ibn al-Sari, as cited by al-Kalabadhi, determined that he is al-Hasan ibn Shuja al-Balkhi, a hadith master younger than al-Bukhari but who died before him. He is counted among the reliable memorisers (huffaz).
In al-Musafaha, al-Burqani reports that al-Bukhari himself said in this isnad: ‘Haddathana al-Husayn’—with a damma on the first letter and in the diminutive form—and that, according to al-Hakim, this refers to al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Qabbani; Allah knows best.
Ismail ibn al-Khalil, al-Bukhari’s teacher here, belongs to the middle tier of his shaykhs. In this chain al-Bukhari drops two levels, for he normally transmits from one intermediary after Zakariya ibn Abi Zaida, whereas here three narrators stand between them.