Sahl ibn Abī Ṣadaqah that he was al-Hanāʾī, and that Ibn Maʿīn declared him trustworthy. Yet Ibn Maʿīn said only: ‘Ṣadaqah Abū Sahl al-Hanāʾī: trustworthy.’”

I say: I have found nothing in what al-Ḥāfiẓ mentioned—much less in what those before him mentioned—to indicate the distinction in question, apart from the difference between the shaykhs from whom the two men narrated and those who narrated from them. This is insufficient to establish such a distinction, especially since both were Basrans, as al-Bukhārī expressly stated, and belonged to the same generation, as Ibn Ḥibbān recorded. This is particularly so because Ibn Abī Ḥātim identified each of them as “Abū Sahl al-Hanāʾī.” Thus, it appears that they were one and the same, as al-Ḥusaynī maintained.

Further supporting this is that Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim, in al-Kunā, and al-Dhahabī, in al-Muqtaṇā, listed under the kunyah “Abū Sahl”: “Ṣadaqah al-Hanāʾī, who narrated from Ibn Sīrīn and from whom Mūsā ibn Ismāʿīl narrated.” It has also preceded in the narration of al-Awsaṭ that the narrator here from Kathīr Abū al-Faḍl is explicitly identified as “Ṣadaqah ibn Abī Sahl, Abū Sahl al-Hanāʾī.” This shows that Ṣadaqah Abū Sahl also narrated from Kathīr Abū al-Faḍl, just as he narrated from Ibn Sīrīn.

Accordingly, a group of trustworthy narrators transmitted from Ṣadaqah, namely:

1. Muslim ibn Ibrāhīm al-Farāhīdī.
2. Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd.
3. Abū Kāmil al-Jaḥdarī.
4. Mūsā ibn Ismāʿīl.
5. Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Malik.
6. Saʿīd ibn Abī al-Rabīʿ al-Sammān.