(1) Ahmad ibn al-Furāt ibn Khālid al-Dhabbī (Abū Masʿūd al-Rāzī), later resident of Isfahan. A leading ḥāfiẓ and authority (ḥujja), he pursued knowledge from a young age and was counted among the ḥuffāẓ while still a beardless youth. He traveled widely, studied under Abū Usāma and his circle, and authored both a Musnad and a Tafsīr. He is reported to have written down one million five hundred thousand ḥadīth. (Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 12:480; al-ʿIbar, 2:22; Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, 1:422.) (2) Ḥumayd ibn al-Rabīʿ ibn Mālik (Abū al-Ḥasan al-Lakhmī al-Kūfī) came to Baghdad and transmitted there from Hisham, Ibn Uyayna, Ibn Idris, among others. ʿUthmān ibn Abī Shayba said: "I am the most knowledgeable of people about him; he is reliable but a voracious muʿaddil." He died at Surr Manraʾ. (Tārīkh Baghdad, 8:162; al-Muntaẓim, 5:12.) (3) Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Jurjānī traveled in pursuit of knowledge and then settled in a village in Egypt. He compiled a Musnad and studied under Abū Nuʿaym and his students. (al-Muntaẓim, 5:15; al-ʿIbar, 2:23.) (4) Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Dhuhli, the patron’s mawla, of Nishapur, was one of the foremost imams and the leading ḥadīth scholar in Khurāsān. Imām Aḥmad held him in high esteem, and Abū Bakr ibn Abī Dāwūd said: “He is the amīr al-muʾminīn in ḥadīth.” He traveled extensively, produced numerous works, and lived eighty-six years. (Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 12:273; al-ʿIbar, 2:23.) (5) The ascetic and gnostic, sage of his time and preacher of his era, he journeyed into Khurāsān then withdrew to Nishapur, where he lived until his death. His tomb bore the inscription: “Died here the sage of the age, Yaḥyā ibn Muʿāḍ.” Among his sayings: “There are seven spiritual stations: repentance, then asceticism, then contentment, then fear, then longing, then love, and finally knowledge.” (Ḥilyat al-Awliyāʾ, 10:51; al-Muntaẓim, 5:16; Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, 12:15.) (6) In manuscript A the reading is “fa-daʿūhu” (“so call him”), which is a corruption.