the narrator himself, and others in which the pronoun points to his father. He clarified and verified each instance, and in (1) every biographical entry he cited a hadith transmitted by that narrator (2).
I subsequently produced an abridgment of the aforementioned work (3) and added (4) a very large number of additional entries (5). The longest continuous chain I encountered is one in which the narration was passed down through fourteen successive fathers (6)(7).
[The Predecessor and the Successor]
If two students share the same shaykh, and the death of one of them precedes that of the other, the pair are called “the predecessor and the successor” (8).
The widest gap we have found between such a pair is a difference of 150 years in their dates of death (9), for the ḥadith master al-Salafī (10) heard from him—
(1) In manuscripts A and B the reading is “min” (from).
(2) The work is entitled al-Washi al-muallam fi man rawa ʿan abihi ʿan jaddihi ʿan al-nabi (The Ornamented Brocade on those who narrated from their fathers from their grandfathers from the Prophet). See: al-Husayni, Dhayl al-Tadhkira, p. 29; al-Abnasi, al-Shadha al-Fayyah, 2:567; al-Iraqi, al-Taqyid wa-l-Idah, p. 348. The book is no longer extant.
(3) The word kitabahu (his book) is missing in manuscript B.
(4) Manuscript T reads “fa-zidtu” (so I added).
(5) Its title is ʿIlm al-Washi fi man yarwi ʿan abihi ʿan jaddihi (The Science of the Brocade on those who transmit from their fathers from their grandfathers). See al-Jawahir wa-l-Durar, 2:680.
(6) Manuscripts A and B read “al-ruwat” (the transmitters).
(7) This is the account recorded by al-Samʿani in al-Dhayl; al-Iraqi reproduced its isnad and then commented: “This is the largest number we have encountered for a chain linked through fathers.” See al-Iraqi, Sharh al-Tabsirah wa-l-Tadhkirah, 2:192.
(8) On the same topic the hadith master Abu Bakr al-Khatib al-Baghdadi authored a book entitled al-Sabiq wa-l-Lahiq fi tabaʿud ma bayna wafat rawiyayn ʿan shaykh wahid (The Earlier and the Later: the time-gap between the deaths of two narrators from one shaykh), and the work has been published.
(9) Manuscript K reads “al-riwayatayn” (the two transmissions).
(10) The person meant is Abu Tahir Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Silafi al-Isfahani, the hadith master (d. 576 AH). See Siyar Aʿlam al-Nubalaʾ, 21:5.