Those who transmitted from him include Ibn Manda, al-Ḥākim, Abū Saʿd al-Idrīsī, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Jurjānī, and many others, and the ḥadith master Abū ʿAlī an-Naysābūrī made an independent selection of his material.

During his commercial journeys he would relate ḥadith in the various places he visited.

Al-Ḥākim said: “He was the foremost ḥadith scholar of his age in Khurāsān, the most widely travelled of our shaykhs, and the soundest of them in terms of original manuscripts.”

He traded in Rayy and stayed there for a time, for which reason he was called ar-Rāzī; and because he kept camels he was also nicknamed al-Jammāl. From his narrations Abū ʿAlī selected forty fascicles (1).

He died in Samarqand in Dhū al-Ḥijjah of the year 346 AH.

326 – Ibn Ḥasnuyah Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī an-Naysābūrī

The venerable, long-lived shaykh, Abū Ḥāmid Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Shādhān an-Naysābūrī, the merchant and shipper, popularly known as Ibn Ḥasnuyah.

Al-Ḥākim said: “He heard a sizeable portion of Abū ʿĪsā at-Tirmidhī’s compilations, as well as narrations from Abū Ḥātim ar-Rāzī, as-Sarī ibn Khuzaymah, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Farrāʾ, and al-Ḥārith ibn Abī Usāmah. He was among those who devoted themselves to worship day and night.

Had he restricted himself to what he actually heard of the Ṣaḥīḥ it would have been better for him; but he went on to relate from a group of people—by Allah, I testify that he never heard from them (2).”

I asked him about his age in the year 338 AH, and he answered, “Six—”