ʿAlī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, al-Thaqafī al-Nīshāpūrī, a Shāfiʿī preacher and a descendant of al-Ḥajjāj.
He was born in Quhistān (1) in 244 AH.
He heard ḥadith from Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Farrāʾ, Mūsā ibn Naṣr al-Rāzī, the ḥāfiẓ Aḥmad ibn Milāʿib, Muḥammad ibn al-Jahm al-Simmarī, and others of their generation, beginning his auditions only in his later years.
Those who narrated from him include Abū Bakr al-Ṣibghī, Abū al-Walīd al-Faqīh, Abū ʿAlī al-Nīshāpūrī, Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim, and others.
Al-Ḥākim said: “I attended his funeral, and I do not recall ever having seen in Nīshāpūr such a crowd. I was present, while still a boy, at one of his preaching sessions, and I heard him beseech, ‘You are indeed al-Wahhāb, al-Wahhāb, al-Wahhāb.’” (2)
Our shaykh al-Ṣibghī said: “The Noble Traits of the Companions and the Followers were transmitted by Imām Mālik from them; from Mālik they were taken by Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Tamīmī; from Yaḥyā they were taken by Muḥammad ibn Naṣr al-Marwazī; and from Ibn Naṣr they were taken by Abū ʿAlī al-Thaqafī.”
Al-Ḥākim also said: “I heard Abū al-Walīd al-Faqīh relate: ‘I visited Ibn Surayj in Baghdad, and he asked me, “With whom did you study Shāfiʿī fiqh in Khurāsān?” I replied…’”