Talha ibn Nafi'

Talha ibn Nafi' of Wasit, Abu Sufyan, known as al-Iskaf, who settled in Mecca; Ibn Hajar places him in the fourth layer of transmitters and grades him "trustworthy" ¹.

Ibn Hajar writes in al-Taqrib: Talha ibn Nafi' al-Wasiti, Abu Sufyan al-Iskaf, settled in Mecca — trustworthy, of the fourth layer; the major collections narrate from him ¹. He transmitted from Abu Ayyub, Jabir and Ibn Abbas, and al-A'mash, Abu Bishr and Ibn Ishaq transmitted from him; a group said there is no harm in him, while Shu'ba said his hadith from Jabir is a written codex; al-Bukhari produced his hadith only paired with another narrator ¹.

Ibn Hajar reports from Shu'ba and Ibn Uyayna that Abu Sufyan's transmission from Jabir was only a codex — a written text he took and then transmitted — and that Abu Khalid al-Dalani used to say Abu Sufyan heard only four hadiths from Jabir ¹. It is narrated that Abu Sufyan said he lived beside Jabir in Mecca for six months, and that he used to memorize while Sulayman al-Yashkuri wrote the dictations from Jabir ¹. Al-Daraqutni and others described him with tadlis, placing him in the third rank of the mudallisin ¹.

Talha ibn Nafi' was a man of Wasit nicknamed Abu Sufyan the shoemaker; he lived in Mecca and sat beside the Companion Jabir ibn Abdallah for six months to take his reports, and the hadith scholars long debated whether he heard directly or used a written copy.

• Taqrib al-Tahdhib, entry 3035 (Majmu'at al-kutub scan, p. 291); his kunya "Abu Sufyan Talha ibn Nafi'" also appears in the kunya section, p. 32.
• The edition appends detailed excerpts from Abu Zur'a's Marasil, Muqaddimat al-Fath, Maratib al-mudallisin and Kashif al-Dhahabi under the entry.
• The scan reads "al-Iskaf"; the rijal books know him as Abu Sufyan al-Iskaf al-Wasiti.