reliable, of noble bearing, endowed with lofty chains of narration, and held in high esteem.
Those who transmitted ḥadīths from him include: al-Bukhārī, Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾī, al-Qazwīnī, Zakariyyā al-Sājī, Abū al-ʿAbbās ibn Surayj, the “Imām of the Imams” Ibn Khuzaymah, Abū ʿAwānah al-Isfarāyīnī (1), ʿUmar ibn Bujayr, Abū al-Qāsim al-Baghawī, Abū Muḥammad ibn Ṣāʿid, Abū Bakr ibn Ziyād, Muḥammad ibn Makhlad, the judge al-Maḥāmilī, Abū Saʿīd ibn al-Aʿrābī, and many others.
Al-Nasāʾī said: “He is trustworthy.”
Ibrāhīm ibn Yaḥyā reported: I heard al-Zaʿfarānī say, “There is no people on the face of the earth superior to the keepers of these inkwells—they pursue the traces of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ and record them so that they will not be lost.”
Ibn Ḥibbān said: “Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and Abū Thawr used to attend the sessions of al-Shāfiʿī, and it was al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Zaʿfarānī who undertook the recitation to him (2).”
Zakariyyā al-Sājī narrated: I heard al-Zaʿfarānī say, “Al-Shāfiʿī arrived among us and we gathered around him. He said, ‘Look for someone who will read for you.’ No one dared read to him except me, and I was the youngest of the company—there was not yet a single hair on my face. To this day I marvel at how fluently my tongue moved in the presence of al-Shāfiʿī—may Allah have mercy on him—and I am even more astonished by…"