All of the transmitters in this chain are reliable; every one of them is listed in al-Tārīkh. Al-Ḥasan ibn Abī Ṭālib here is al-Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī, Abū Muḥammad al-Khallāl, who died in 439 AH.

115 – Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj (216–313 AH)

282 – Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Khaffāf related: Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj dictated to us in the year 312 AH and said,
“Whoever does not acknowledge and believe that Allah, exalted is He, expresses amazement, laughs, and descends every night to the lowest heaven, saying: ‘Who will ask of Me so that I may give to him?’—such a person is a heretic unbeliever. He must be ordered to repent; if he repents, all is well, otherwise his neck is to be struck. No funeral prayer is to be performed for him, nor is he to be buried in Muslim graveyards.”

I say: He is only deemed an unbeliever after he has learned that the Messenger ﷺ affirmed these attributes and then rejects them and refuses to believe in them.

Indeed, Abū al-ʿAbbās Muḥammad ibn Isḥāq al-Thaqafī al-Naysābūrī al-Sarrāj was one of the great ḥadith preservers. He narrated extensively from Qutaybah and his peers, compiled a Musnad arranged by subject headings, lived to a ripe old age, and died in 313 AH.

226 – His name is Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar al-Khaffāf al-Qanṭarī, the nisbah referring to a quarter of Naysābūr called Raʾs al-Qanṭarah, as stated in al-Samʿānī’s Ansāb. Al-Samʿānī describes him as an ascetic; Abū al-Qāsim al-Qushayrī transmitted from him. Under the entry “al-Khaffāf,” al-Samʿānī further says he was a righteous shaykh, much given to worship, and that his audition certificates, written in his own hand from Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj, are sound. He died in 394 AH at the age of ninety-three.

As for Abū ʿUmar al-Milīḥī—the consonant is an unpointed ḥāʾ—this is how the name appears in the base manuscript of al-Shadharāt. The work’s annotator, relying on al-Muʿjam, claimed the letter is a jīm, but he was mistaken. After al-Samʿānī records the nisbah “al-Milījī” with a jīm, he immediately notes “al-Milīḥī” with ḥāʾ, adding: “The one best known by this nisbah is Abū ʿUmar ʿAbd al-Wāḥid ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī al-Qāsim al-Milīḥī al-Harawī, a native of Herat.” He transmitted from Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Khaffāf and from Abū Ḥāmid al-Nuʿaymī the text of Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, as well as from many others.

Ibn al-ʿImād states: “He died in 463 AH at the age of ninety-six; he was a righteous man, and Muḥyī al-Sunnah”—that is, Imām al-Baghawī—“narrated from him extensively in Sharḥ al-Sunnah and elsewhere.”