and from al-Ḥibri; ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Muḥammad al-Raqāshī; Abū Ismāʿīl al-Tirmidhī; Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Kudaymī; Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī al-ʿAwwām; Ṣāliḥ ibn ʿAlī al-Nawfalī; al-Ḥasan ibn Mukram; ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn al-Haytham al-Dayrʿāqūlī; Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Khanājir; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Marzūq al-Buzūrī; Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam al-Ramlī, and many others in Syria, the Two Holy Sanctuaries, Iraq, and the Jazīrah.
Narrating from him were: Abū ʿAlī ibn Maʿrūf, ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Kilābī, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī ʿUthmān ibn Abī al-Ḥadīd, Ibn Jumayʿ al-Ghassānī, Tammām al-Rāzī, Abū ʿAbd Allah ibn Mandah, Abū Ḥafṣ ibn Shāhīn, Abū ʿAbd Allah ibn Abī Kāmil, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Naṣr al-Tamīmī, Abū Naṣr ibn Hārūn, Abū ʿAbd Allah Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mufarrij al-Qurṭubī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Raqqī, together with many others.
He lived to an advanced age, and seekers travelled to him from every land. Toward the end of his life he came to Damascus and taught there. The last person to hear him before his death was ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, while the final transmitter who obtained his written permission in this world was the ḥadith master Abū Nuʿaym.
ʿUbayd ibn Aḥmad ibn Fuṭays said: I asked Khaythamah about his birth, and he replied, “In the year 227 AH.” That is one report, though the more accurate view is what has already been mentioned.
Abū Bakr al-Khaṭīb said, “Khaythamah is reliably trustworthy; he compiled The Merits of the Companions.”
Ibn Abī Kāmil relates: I heard Khaythamah ibn Sulaymān say,
“I boarded a ship and headed for Jableh to hear hadith from Yūsuf ibn Baḥr. I then set out for Antioch, but we encountered a vessel—belonging, that is, to the enemy. We fought them, and then some men from the bow of our own ship surrendered (1).”