174 – Aḥmad ibn Salamah ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Abū al-Faḍl al-Naysābūrī: a ḥāfiẓ, an unimpeachable authority, upright, trustworthy, and highly skilled. Known also as Abū al-Faḍl al-Naysābūrī the cloth-merchant, he was Imam Muslim’s travelling companion in the quest for ḥadīth.
He studied under Qutaybah, Isḥāq ibn Rāhwayh, Muḥammad ibn Mihrān al-Jammāl, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muʿāwiyah, ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, Abū Kurayb, Ibn Ḥumayd, Aḥmad ibn Manīʿ, and many others. He gathered extensive material and produced compilations.
Those who narrated from him include Ibn Wārah, Abū Zurʿah, Abū Ḥātim—then still among his youngest teachers—Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Sharqī, Yaḥyā ibn Manṣūr the judge, Sulaymān ibn Muḥammad ibn Nājah, ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā, Abū al-Faḍl Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, and several others.
Abū al-Qāsim al-Nasrābādī said, “I saw Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī in a dream, and he was saying, ‘Hold fast to the Ṣaḥīḥ of Aḥmad ibn Salamah.’”
Abū al-Faḍl al-Hāshimī stated, “Ibn Salamah passed away on the first of Jumādā al-Ākhirah, in the year 286 AH.”
175 – al-Mustamli, Abū ʿAmr Aḥmad ibn al-Mubārak: a ḥāfiẓ, scholar, ascetic, devout worshipper, one whose supplication was answered—Abū ʿAmr