I say: From that period—indeed, even earlier—the ḥuffāẓ began to apply this expression to a shaykh whose audition was sound, being read to him by a proficient reciter and duly recorded by an upright scribe; they then felt free to label him “reliable.” In the terminology of the early critical Imams, however, “reliable” was reserved for a man who was upright in himself, exact in what he carried, precise in what he transmitted, and who possessed understanding and expertise in the discipline. The later generations broadened the term.
Ibn Khallād died in Ṣafar of the year 359 AH.
51 – Al-Khayyām, Abū Ṣāliḥ Khalaf ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl
The shaykh and eminent ḥadith scholar, Abū Ṣāliḥ Khalaf ibn Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Naṣr al-Bukhārī, known as al-Khayyām, was the bundār (foremost authority) of hadith in Transoxiana.
He narrated from Ṣāliḥ ibn Muḥammad Jazzara, Naṣr ibn Aḥmad al-Kindī, Ḥāmid ibn Sahl, Mūsā ibn Aflah, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn ʿUthmān, ʿUmar ibn Hannād, Farḥ ibn Ayyūb, and the shaykhs of his own town; he never travelled abroad.
Those who transmitted from him include al-Ḥākim, Ibn Mandah, Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad Ghanjār, and Abū Saʿd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn al-Idrīsī. They found fault with him, grading him as lenient, yet they did not abandon his narrations.
He lived eighty-six years and died in Jumada al-Ūlā of the year 361 AH.
52 – Ibn ʿUmārah, Abū al-Ḥārith Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad al-Laythī