Ibn Kāmil the judge said: “He presided over his assemblies with grace, was versed in many sciences, and possessed an extraordinary memory for hadith—both those traced back to the Prophet and those whose chains stop short—as well as for the various genres of historical reports, genealogy, poetry, and the biographies of transmitters. He was eloquent, of middling rank in jurisprudence, and inclined toward the school of the Iraqi scholars. I heard him say, ‘I accompanied Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn and from him I learned the evaluation of narrators; I associated with Muṣʿab and from him I acquired genealogy; I kept the company of Abū Khaythama and from him I received the Musnad; and I stayed with Sajjāda (1) and from him I learned fiqh.’(2)

212 – al-Ṣāʾigh, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Makkī
The muhaddith, eminent imām, and reliable authority, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Zayd al-Makkī, known as al-Ṣāʾigh (the goldsmith).

He heard hadith from al-Qaʿnabi, Khālid ibn Yazīd al-ʿUmari, Ḥafṣ ibn ʿUmar al-Ḥawḍi, Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, Muḥammad ibn Muʿāwiyah, Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, Muḥammad ibn Bishr al-Tinnīsī, Aḥmad ibn Shabīb, Ḥafṣ ibn ʿUmar al-Juddī (3), Ibrāhīm ibn al-Mundhir, Yaʿqūb ibn Ḥumayd ibn Kāsib, and a number of others. He combined integrity, keen understanding, and an expansive body of narration.

Those who transmitted from him include Daʿlaj ibn Aḥmad, Abū Muḥammad al-Fākihī, Sulaymān al-Ṭabarānī, and many other itinerant scholars.