“…I embraced Islam while I had eight wives, so I went to the Prophet ﷺ and he instructed me to keep four of them.” (1)
In that same year there died: Aḥmad ibn Maḥmūd al-Shamʿī in Egypt; Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAlī al-Khuzāʿī; the vizier Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-Muhallabī; ʿAlī ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Qays the tailor; ʿAlī ibn Hārūn the astrologer; and Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn Mālik al-Iskāfī.
7 – Ibn ʿAllān, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ḥarrānī
Imām, ḥāfiẓ, and the leading hadith scholar of Harran, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAllān al-Ḥarrānī, author of “History of al-Jazīrah.”
He studied under Abū Yaʿlā al-Mawṣilī, Muḥammad ibn Jarīr, ʿAbd Allah ibn Zaydān al-Bajalī, Saʿīd ibn Hāshim al-Ṭabarānī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Bāghandī, and their peers, gathering a large and comprehensive corpus.
Those who transmitted from him include Abū ʿAbd Allah ibn Mandah, Tammām al-Rāzī, and Aḥmad ibn—
(1) Al-Bayhaqi (7/183) reports the narration through Yusuf b. Yaqub al-Qadi → Abu al-Rabiʿ → Hishim → Ibn Abi Layla; Hishim adds: “Al-Kalbi also told me, from Humaydah b. al-Shamardal.” The same chain is found in Abu Dawud (2241) and Ibn Majah (1952) via Hishim, from Ibn Abi Layla, from Humaydah.
The hadith is strengthened by a corroborating isnad cited by al-Shafiʿi (2/351), Ahmad (2/44), al-Tirmidhi (1128), Ibn Majah (1953), Ibn Hibban (1277), al-Hakim (2/192–193) and al-Bayhaqi (7/149, 181): Maʿmar → al-Zuhri → Salim → ʿAbd Allah b. ʿUmar, who relates that when Ghilan b. Salamah accepted Islam while married to ten women, the Prophet said, “Keep four and divorce the rest.” Another supporting report comes from ʿUrwah b. Masʿud al-Thaqafi, recorded by al-Shafiʿi (2/351) and, through him, by al-Bayhaqi (7/184).
(*) Tadhkirat al-Huffaz 3/924-925; al-Nujum al-Zahira 4/13; al-Suyuti, Tabaqat al-Huffaz, p. 375; Shadharat al-Dhahab 3/17.