211 – I say: It is most likely Aḥmad ibn Abī Dāwūd the Jahmī, who is explicitly identified as the questioner in the preceding report.

212 – I say: The compiler transmitted it with his chain through al-Khaṭīb, and al-Khaṭīb recorded it in his History 5/283–284. Al-Bayhaqī likewise cited it in al-Asmāʾ, p. 415, and al-Lālakāʾī in 1/92/1, all by way of Naftawayh. The isnād is sound. Dāwūd ibn ʿAlī is Abū Sulaymān al-Iṣfahānī, the jurist and leading figure of the Ẓāhirī school; he is upright, trustworthy, and distinguished, and he died in 270 AH. As for Naftawayh, he is Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿArafah Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿAtakī, the famed grammarian; he is reliable and acceptable, and he died in 323 AH.

69 – Abū Jaʿfar al-Nufaylī, the scholar of al-Jazīrah … d. 234 AH.

242 – Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Mihrān narrated to us: I heard Abū Jaʿfar ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Nufayl say, “Whoever says that the Qur’an is created is a disbeliever.” Someone asked him, “Abū Jaʿfar, disbelief is of two kinds: ingratitude for blessings and denial of the Lord. Which do you intend?” He replied, “Rather, it is denial of the Lord. What would you say about a man who claims that ‘Allāh is One, Allāh the Everlasting Refuge’ is created—would he not be a disbeliever?”

Al-Nufaylī was one of the pillars of the religion and was considered a peer of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal; Abū Dāwūd al-Sijistānī said, “I have never seen anyone with a better memory than al-Nufaylī.” I say: He died in 234 AH at a very advanced age.

213 – I say: The chain is sound, for Ibn Mihrān is ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn al-Junayd al-Rāzī, a great, trustworthy ḥāfiẓ who died in 291 AH. Ibn Abī Ḥātim said in his entry in al-Jarḥ 3/1/179: “We wrote from him; he is truthful and reliable.”

I add: None of the biographers I have consulted mention Mihrān as his grandfather’s name. It seems likely that Mihrān was the name of a more distant ancestor and al-Junayd that of his nearer forebear, or vice-versa—and Allah knows best.