[His Name, Birth, and Upbringing]
He is Harb ibn Ismāʿīl ibn Khalaf al-Hanẓalī al-Kirmānī, known by the kunya Abū Muḥammad—though some report Abū ʿAbd Allāh—the jurist, ḥadīth master, and close associate of Imām Aḥmad (1).

The exact year of his birth is unknown. Al-Dhahabī records that he died in 280 AH and then remarks, “He lived to an advanced age, nearing ninety.” (2) This places his birth approximately near the close of the second Islamic century.

Imām Harb al-Kirmānī was reared in a period when the Islamic sciences were thriving. Like the other eminent scholars of his age, he loved knowledge, was eager to attain it, and labored earnestly to take it from its specialists. He travelled widely in pursuit of learning, roaming from land to land, studying under many teachers. He heard directly from Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and from Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh, recording from them a large assortment of legal issues—matters he had already memorized before coming to Imām Aḥmad—which he estimated at about four thousand questions (3).