the cities of Khurasan, compiler of the Ṣaḥīḥ, d. 261 AH.
4 – Imām Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān ibn al-Ashʿath al-Azdī al-Sijistānī—Sijistān being a town in Khurasan—author of the Sunan, d. 275 AH.
5 – Imām Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad ibn ʿĪsā al-Tirmidhī, from Tirmidh in Khurasan near the Jayḥūn River, d. 279 AH.
6 – Imām Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Aḥmad ibn Shuʿayb al-Nasāʾī, from the town of Nasāʾ in Khurasan, author of the Sunan, d. 303 AH.
7 – Imām Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Yazīd al-Qazwīnī, from Qazwīn, a city in ʿIrāq al-ʿAjam, widely known as “Ibn Mājah,” d. 273 AH.
8 – Imām Abū ʿAbdillāh Mālik ibn Anas al-Aṣbaḥī, tracing his lineage to Dhi Aṣbaḥ—one of the kings of Yemen—one of the four great imams and the scholar of Medina, d. 179 AH.
9 – Imām Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī al-Qurashī al-Muṭṭalibī, the scholar of Quraysh and one of the four great imams, d. 204 AH.
10 – Imām Abū Bakr ʿAbdullāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Abī Shaybah al-Kūfī al-ʿAbsī by clientage, author of the Muṣannaf, d. 235 AH.
11 – Imām Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq ibn Khuzaymah al-Sulamī al-Naysābūrī, known as “the imam of the imams,” d. 311 AH.
12 – Imām Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Bayhaqī, from Bayhaq—a town near Naysābūr—the shaykh of Khurasan and author of many beneficial works, d. 458 AH.
13 – Imām Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdillāh al-Naysābūrī, popularly known as “al-Ḥākim,” who compiled the Mustadrak on the two Ṣaḥīḥs, d. 405 AH.
14 – Imām Abū Ḥātim Muḥammad ibn Ḥibbān al-Bustī, from Bust—a town under the jurisdiction of Kabul—a veritable reservoir of knowledge, d. 354 AH.