15 – Imām Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn ʿUmar al-Dāraqutnī, named after Dār-Qutn—a quarter of Baghdad—an erudite ḥadith master and compiler of the Sunan, d. 385 AH.
16 – Imām Abū al-Qāsim Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad al-Ṭabarānī, linked to Tiberias in Greater Syria, author of the three Muʿjams, d. 360 AH.
17 – Imām Abū ʿAlī Saʿīd ibn ʿUthmān ibn al-Sakan al-Baghdādī, one of the eminent ḥadith preservers; he compiled al-Muntaqā al-Ṣaḥīḥ, d. 354 AH.
18 – Imām Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Qiṭṭān, originally from Córdoba, a ḥadith authority with numerous writings, d. 628 AH.
19 – Ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn ʿAmr ibn ʿAlī al-Baṣrī, author of the Small and the Large Musnad, d. 292 AH.
20 – Ḥāfiẓ Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Jārūd al-Naysābūrī, author of al-Muntaqā min al-Sunan al-Musnada, d. 307 AH.

These are the scholars from whose works al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar selected the hadiths included in his book Bulūgh al-Marām. We have introduced them here in brief so that readers who were previously unfamiliar with them may gain an initial acquaintance.

The commentaries on Bulūgh al-Marām that I have examined are:
1 – al-Badr al-Tamm by Shaykh al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad al-Maghribī al-Ṣanʿānī, which remains in manuscript form; I saw it in the possession of Ibrāhīm al-Nūrī and I own a copy of it.
2 – Subul al-Salām by Shaykh Muḥammad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Ṣanʿānī, an abridgement of al-Badr al-Tamm. It has been printed several times and is the most widely circulated commentary on Bulūgh al-Marām.
3 – Fatḥ al-ʿAllām by Shaykh Muḥammad Ṣiddīq ibn Ḥasan Khān, an abridgement of Subul al-Salām. It was printed in limited numbers, but later photo-reproduced and thus became more widely available.
4 – The commentary of Sayyid Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Ahdal; Sayyid Amīn Kutbī stated that he saw it in