ibn Mihrān al-Baghdādī, the bookseller—Ḥamdān, a righteous servant.

He heard (hadith) from ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Mūsā, Abū Nuʿaym, Qabīṣah, Muʿāwiyah ibn ʿAmr, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Rajāʾ, ʿAffān, and others of their generation.

Those who narrated from him include Yaḥyā ibn Ṣāʿid, Muḥammad ibn Makhlad, Ismāʿīl al-Ṣaffār, Abū al-Ḥusayn ibn Buyān the Qurʾān-reciter, and several others.

Al-Khaṭīb said, “He was distinguished, a ḥāfiẓ, reliable, and knowledgeable.” (1)

Abū Ḥafṣ ibn Shāhīn reported, “He was among the eminent companions of Aḥmad.”

Aḥmad ibn al-Munādī said, “Ḥamdān ibn ʿAlī enjoyed universal recognition for his piety and merit. We have been told that, when speaking of the cause of death, he remarked, ‘Never has my skin touched the skin of any male or female—ever.’” (2)

Al-Darqutnī declared him “trustworthy.”

I (the author) add: I repeated to our teacher Ibn Taymiyyah the statement of Shaykh ʿAlī ibn al-Nafīs, the traditionist: “All my life I never saw him in the company of either woman or man.” Ibn Taymiyyah thereupon supplicated for him and held him in high esteem.

Ḥamdān died in 272 AH.

37 – Ḥamdūn al-Qaṣṣār ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUmārah al-Naysābūrī *

The shaykh of the Ṣūfīs: Abū Ṣāliḥ Ḥamdūn ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUmārah al-Naysābūrī.

He was the exemplar of the Malāmatiyyah—a path that dismantles the outward self while cultivating the inward, all in full adherence to the Sacred Law—and he followed the way of Sufyān al-Thawrī.