45 – Yūsuf al-Qāḍī ibn Yaʿqūb al-Azdī, their client*
A celebrated author of works on the Sunnah—imam, ḥāfiẓ, eminent jurist, trustworthy authority, and judge. He is Abū Muḥammad Yūsuf ibn Yaʿqūb ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ḥammād ibn Zayd ibn Dirham al-Azdī, their client, Basran by origin and later of Baghdad.
His family devoted themselves to his upbringing, for theirs was a house of learning.
While still a youngster he studied under Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm, Sulaimān ibn Ḥarb, ʿAmrū ibn Marzūq, Muḥammad ibn Kathīr al-ʿAbdī, Musaddad ibn Musarhad, Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr al-Muqaddamī, Hudbah ibn Khālid, Shaybān ibn Farrūkh, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī, and others of their generation.
Those who transmitted from him include Abū ʿAmr ibn al-Sammāk, Abū Sahl al-Qaṭṭān, ʿAbd al-Bāqī ibn Qāniʿ, Dajlaj ibn Aḥmad, Abū Bakr al-Shāfiʿī, Abū al-Qāsim al-Ismāʿīlī, Abū Aḥmad ibn ʿAdī, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn Kaysān, and many others.
He possessed the most elevated chains of transmission of anyone in Baghdad during his era.
Al-Khaṭīb (1) said: “He was reliable, righteous, chaste, dignified, and sound in judgment. He was appointed judge over Basra and Wāsiṭ in 276 AH, and the judiciary of Baghdad’s eastern quarter was later added to his charge.”