from Isfahan, the nephew of Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Zāhid. His full name was Aḥmad ibn ʿIṣām ibn ʿAbd al-Majīd ibn Kathīr ibn Abī ʿAmrah.
He heard ḥadith from Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī, Muʿādh ibn Hishām, Abū Aḥmad al-Zubayrī, and scholars of their rank.
Those who narrated from him include Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd, Aḥmad ibn Jaʿfar al-Simsār, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar ibn Fāris, and others.
I am not aware of any flaw in his reliability.
He passed away in Ramaḍān of 272 AH, at more than ninety years of age. May Allah have mercy on him.
26 – Aḥmad ibn Mulāʿib, Abū al-Faḍl al-Baghdādī
The imām, ḥadith scholar, and ḥāfiẓ, Abū al-Faḍl al-Baghdādī al-Mukharromī.
He studied under ʿAbd Allāh ibn Bakr al-Sahmī, Abū Nuʿaym, ʿAbd al-Ṣamad ibn al-Nuʿmān, ʿAffān, Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm, and their contemporaries.
Among those who transmitted from him were Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid, Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār, Abū Bakr al-Najjād, ʿUthmān ibn al-Sammāk, Abū Jaʿfar ibn al-Bakhtarī, and many others.
Ibn ʿUqda said: “I heard Aḥmad ibn Mulāʿib declare, ‘I narrate only what I have memorised as securely as my memorisation of the Quran.’ He added, ‘And I saw him distinguish between the letters faʾ and wāw (1).’”