There are several individuals named Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Isfahānī whose biographies appear in Abū Nuʿaym’s Akhbār Iṣbahān:
1- Muḥammad Ibrāhīm ibn Shabīb al-ʿAssāl, Abū ʿAbd Allāh, a trustworthy shaykh. He narrated from Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAmr and others, and died in 292 AH.
2- Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Saʿīd ibn Māwandād al-Thaqafī, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Washshāʾ, an honest shaykh. He narrated from Zayd ibn al-Ḥarīsh and others, and died in 299 AH.
3- Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Naṣr ibn Shabīb al-Ṣaffār, Abū Bakr, trustworthy. He later settled in Madinah and died in 305 AH; he transmitted the Musnad of Hārūn al-Ḥammāl.
I say: The transmitter of this report is likely to be one of these reliable men.
253 – ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim said: I asked my father and Abū Zurʿa—may Allah have mercy on them—about the creed of Ahl al-Sunnah concerning the fundamentals of the religion, what they had seen the scholars holding in all regions, and what they themselves believed. They replied:
“We found the scholars in every land, and among their views were that faith is speech and action; it increases and decreases. The Qur’an, in all its aspects, is the speech of Allah and is uncreated. Predestination, its good and its evil, is from Allah, exalted is He. Allah, exalted is He, is above His Throne, distinct from His creation, exactly as He has described Himself in His Book and on the tongue of His Messenger. He has encompassed everything in knowledge: ‘There is nothing like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.’”
Abū Zurʿa was the leading ḥadith scholar of his time. Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said, “No one with a better memory has ever crossed the bridge of Baghdad than Abū Zurʿa; he was one of the abdāl1 through whom the earth is protected.” He also said, “This young man has memorised seven hundred thousand hadiths.”
I say: He was a foremost figure in knowledge and practice, with abundant merits. He died in 264 AH, and Muslim narrated from him in his Ṣaḥīḥ.
226 – I say: This report is authentic and firmly established from Abū Zurʿa and Abū Ḥātim—may Allah have mercy on them—for it has been cited