among the children of the Companions, and among the Successors are those known as the Mukhḍaramūn; the singular is mukhḍaram (with a fatḥah on the rāʾ). A mukhḍaram is someone who lived through both the jāhiliyyah (pre-Islamic era) and the Prophet’s lifetime ﷺ, yet never saw him and only embraced Islam afterwards. Muslim counted twenty such individuals, though they are actually more; among those he left out are Abū Muslim al-Khawlānī and al-Aḥnaf.

In the age of the leading Successors stood the Seven Jurists: Ibn al-Musayyib, al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, ʿUrwah, Khārijah ibn Zayd, Abū Salamah ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, ʿUbayd Allāh ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUtbah, and Sulaymān ibn Yasār. Ibn al-Mubārak substituted Sālim ibn ʿAbd Allāh for Abū Salamah, while Abū al-Zinād replaced them both with Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān.

It is related from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal that he said, “The most excellent of the Successors is Ibn al-Musayyib.” He was asked, “What of ʿAlqamah and al-Aswad?” and replied, “He—as well as the two of them.” He is also reported to have said, “I know of none among them like Abū ʿUthmān al-Nahdī and Qays,” and likewise, “The best of them are Qays, Abū ʿUthmān, ʿAlqamah, and Masrūq.”

Abū ʿAbdallāh ibn Khafīf observed: “The people of Madinah say the foremost Successor is Ibn al-Musayyib; in Kūfah they say it is Uways; in Basrah, al-Ḥasan.”

Ibn Abī Dāwūd said: “The two leading women among the Successors are Ḥafṣah bint Sīrīn and ʿAmrah bint ʿAbd al-Raḥmān; next in rank is Umm al-Dardāʾ.” Some scholars have classed as Successors a group who never met any Companion, and have classed as Successors others who were themselves Companions; so let one be alert to this. Allah knows best.

Forty-First Category:
Seniors Narrating from Juniors

One benefit of studying this category is to avert the supposition that the person from whom a report is taken must be older or more virtuous simply because that is the usual case. This phenomenon has several forms. One is that the narrator is older in age and earlier in rank, as in al-Zuhrī narrating from Mālik, or al-Azharī from al-Khaṭīb,