by the compiler through three separate isnāds from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim—may Allah have mercy on him—one of which comes by way of Hibat Allāh ibn al-Ḥasan al-Lālikāʾī. Al-Lālikāʾī himself records it in his monumental work Sharḥ Uṣūl al-Sunnah, where he says (1/47/1):

“Muḥammad ibn al-Muzaffar the Qurʾān-reciter informed us; al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabsh the Qurʾān-reciter narrated to us; Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim narrated to us …”

I say: This chain of transmission is good. Muḥammad ibn al-Muzaffar is the son of ʿAlī ibn Ḥarb, Abū Bakr al-Muqriʾ al-Daynūrī. Al-Khaṭīb states (3/265):

“He resided in Baghdad and transmitted there from Abū Isḥāq al-Muzakkī al-Naysābūrī … and from Abū ʿAlī ibn Ḥabsh al-Daynūrī. We wrote from him; he was a righteous, virtuous, and trustworthy shaykh, and he died in 415 AH.”

Al-Ḥusayn ibn Muḥammad ibn Ḥabsh al-Muqriʾ is Abū ʿAlī al-Daynūrī, the companion of Mūsā ibn Jarīr al-Raqī. Ibn al-ʿImād listed him among the deaths of the year 373 AH and added no further detail.

The earlier entry for Ibn al-Muzaffar in the History of Baghdad suggests that he arrived in Baghdad—if he was not born there—because Ibn al-Muzaffar transmitted from him in that city; yet al-Khaṭīb did not give him an independent biography. Allah knows best.

Nor is this chain unique, for the compiler also transmits it through ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz—al-Baghawī, who is reliable and firmly established—and through ʿAlī ibn Mardak, whom I have not been able to identify.

Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s epistle is preserved in Majmūʿ 11 of the Ẓāhiriyyah Library, appended to the end of the book Zuhd al-Thamāniyah min al-Tābiʿīn via these latter two chains, and there Ibn Mardak is described as Bardāʿī. Allah knows best.