—the Iṣfahānī ḥadith master, better known as al-ʿAssāl, author of several compilations.
I found a separate biographical entry devoted to him in a small treatise by the ḥadith expert Abū Mūsā, which the ḥadith master ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī had heard directly from him.
He studied under: his own father—one of his earliest teachers—for the latter died in 282 AH; as well as under Abū Muslim al-Kajjī, Muḥammad ibn Ayyūb ibn al-ʌDurays al-Rāzī, Abū Bakr ibn Abī ʿĀṣim, Muḥammad ibn Asad al-Madīnī (a close associate of Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī), Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shaybah, al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī al-Sarrī, Ibrāhīm ibn Zuhayr al-Ḥulwānī, Muṭayyin, Abū Shuʿayb al-Ḥarrānī, Bakr ibn Sahl al-Dimyāṭī, and others of their rank.
He recited the Qur’an in the reading of Nāfiʿ to the master Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿAmr ibn Sahl al-Iṣfahānī al-Ṣūfī, who had himself read to al-Faḍl ibn Shādhān al-Rāzī.
That recitation was then heard from him by his son Abū ʿĀmir ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, one of the leading and wealthiest men of Iṣfahān.
I have examined his book Maʿrifah on the Sunnah, which testifies to his prodigious memory and scholarly leadership. The greatest of his father’s teachers was Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAmr al-Bajalī, companion of Misʿar.
Those who narrated from Abū Aḥmad include his own sons: Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad, Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm, Abū ʿĀmir ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Abū al-Faḍl al-ʿAbbās, Abū al-Ḥusayn ʿĀmir, and Abū Bakr ʿAbd Allāh. Four of them were considered upright, reliable transmitters, namely