Forty-Sixth Category:
Two reporters transmit from the same shaykh, yet the interval between their deaths is unusually long.

Al-Khatib devoted an excellent treatise to this subject, one of whose benefits is the delightful brevity (ʿuluww) it confers upon the chain of transmission. An example is Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Sarrāj: both al-Bukhari and al-Khuffāf narrated from him, and the span between their respective deaths is one hundred and thirty-seven years—if not more. Likewise, al-Zuhri and Zakariyya ibn Ruwayd both transmitted from Malik, and the gap between their deaths is comparable. Allah knows best.

Forty-Seventh Category:
Those from whom only a single person narrated.

Imam Muslim authored a book on this type. Among its examples are Wahb ibn Khanbash, ʿĀmir ibn Shahr, ʿUrwah ibn Mudarris, Muhammad ibn Ṣafwān, and Muhammad ibn Ṣayfi—Companions from whom no one transmitted except al-Shaʿbi. Qays ibn Abi Ḥāzim alone narrated from his father, from Dukayn, from al-Ṣanābih ibn al-Aʿsar, and from Mirdās, all of whom were Companions. Other Companions whose sole transmitter was their own son include: al-Musayyib (father of Saʿid), Muʿāwiyah (father of Ḥakim), Qurrah ibn Iyas (father of Muʿāwiyah), and Abu Layla (father of ʿAbd al-Rahman).

Al-Hakim remarked: “Neither of the two Shaykhs (al-Bukhari and Muslim) included in their Ṣaḥīḥs any narration from persons of this description.” Scholars, however, deemed him mistaken, pointing out that both of them did in fact record the hadith of al-Musayyib—Abu Saʿid—regarding the death of Abu Talib; that al-Bukhari included the report of al-Hasan from ʿAmr ibn Taghlib and the report of Qays from Mirdās; and that Muslim