I said, “By it he meant his Musnad al-Kabīr (1).”

Ibn al-Sharqī relates from Muslim that he said, “I placed nothing in this Musnad except on the basis of proof, and I omitted nothing from it except for a proof (2).”

Muslim died in the month of Rajab, in the year 261 AH, at Nīshāpūr, at somewhat over fifty years of age. His grave is still visited.

218 – al-Musūḥī, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Baghdādī

The shaykh of the ascetics, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Baghdādī, the Sufi, known as al-Musūḥī (3).

He narrated from Bishr ibn al-Ḥārith and kept the company of Sarī al-Saqaṭī.

He was the first person in Baghdad for whom a teaching circle was convened to discuss the spiritual realities.

Those who narrated from him include Junayd, Ibn Masrūq, Abū Muḥammad al-Jarīrī, and the judge Abū ʿAbd Allah al-Maḥāmilī.

It is also said that Abū Ḥamzah al-Baghdādī associated with him.

Ibn al-Aʿrābī said, “I heard more than one person—who had themselves heard Abū Ḥamzah—often say, ‘Ḥasan is our teacher; may Allah have mercy on Ḥasan.’”