82 – Aḥmad ibn Naṣr ibn Ziyād al-Qurashī (T, S)

The Imām, the exemplar, the Shaykh of Nīshāpūr—its foremost Qur’an reciter, muftī and ascetic—Shaykh Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Qurashī al-Nīshāpūrī.

He journeyed far and wide, and transmitted ḥadīth from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Numayr, al-Naḍr ibn Shumayl, Ibn Abī Fudayk, Abū Usāmah, and their peers.

Those who narrated from him include Abū Nuʿaym—who had been one of his own teachers—, al-Tirmidhī and al-Nasāʾī in their two Sunans, Salamah ibn Shabīb, Ibn Khuzaymah, Abū ʿArūbah al-Ḥarrānī, and many others.

Al-Ḥākim said: “He was the jurist of the ḥadīth-scholars in his era, much-travelled and prolific in narration—may Allah have mercy on him.”

It is also said that, though advanced in years, he travelled to Abū ʿUbayd (1) to seek deeper legal understanding; he studied under him, issued fatwas according to his school, and Ibn Khuzaymah first trained under him before later departing to al-Muzanī. He was trustworthy, reliable, firmly upon the Sunnah, and of great stature.

He died in the year 245 AH.

In that same year the Imām of the people of Samarkand—the exemplar, devout worshipper, and trustworthy scholar—Abū Bakr also passed away