ʿIlm ar-Rijāl · the narrators

The Narrators of Hadith

Every hadith reached us because a named person heard it, remembered it, and passed it on. This page is about those people: who they were, where each one stands in a chain of transmission, and why the same handful of names comes round again and again. It is not a scoreboard — no hadith is counted here, and no narrator is ranked against another.

The eight you will meet most often

A few Companions appear at the head of far more reports than anyone else — the scholars call them al-muktharūn, "those who narrated much." Why each of them was in a position to carry so much is the interesting part: one slept in the mosque with nowhere else to be, one was a wife, one was a servant boy, one was a child cousin who spent his adult life chasing the reports down. The eighth here is the opposite case, and just as instructive.

Abu Hurayrah

أبو هريرة

The most prolific of all. He accepted Islam only about four years before the Prophet ﷺ passed away, yet he out-narrated men who had known the Prophet for twenty years. The reason: he was one of the Ahl as-Suffah, the poor Companions who slept on a raised platform in the Prophet's mosque with no trade or family to pull them away, so he was present for nearly everything. He once told the Prophet ﷺ that he was hearing much but forgetting it; the Prophet had him spread out his garment, made a motion as though pouring something into it, and told him to gather it to his chest — Abu Hurayrah said he never forgot anything after that. Sahih al-Bukhari 119.

Aisha bint Abi Bakr

عائشة

The single most important source for the fiqh of the household: the Prophet's worship at night, his fasting, his conduct at home, matters of purity and marriage that only a wife would witness. She was a jurist in her own right, and the senior Companions sent to her with their questions. When other narrators reported something about the Prophet's private life that she knew differently, she corrected them.

Abdullah ibn Umar

ابن عمر

The son of the second caliph. He was known for copying the Sunnah with almost anxious precision: where he saw the Prophet ﷺ stop, pray, or sit, he would do the same in the same spot. That obsession with exactness made his reports especially prized.

Abdullah ibn Abbas

ابن عباس

Remembered as the scholar and Quran-interpreter of the ummah (turjuman al-Quran). He was a young cousin of the Prophet ﷺ, only around thirteen when the Prophet died, but he spent the decades after chasing down hadith from older Companions and teaching. The Prophet ﷺ had once prayed for him: "O Allah! Make him (Ibn ʿAbbas) a learned scholar in religion (Islam)" Sahih al-Bukhari 143.

Anas ibn Malik

أنس بن مالك

His mother gave him into the Prophet's service as a boy of about ten, and he served for ten years, right up to the Prophet's death, which put him beside the Prophet ﷺ for daily life the way few others were. He said that in all that time the Prophet never once scolded him — never said "why did you do that?" or "why did you not do that?" Sahih al-Bukhari 6038.

Jabir ibn Abdullah

جابر بن عبد الله

He lived long, well into the era after the Companions had scattered, and taught a study circle in Madinah that students traveled to reach. His single most valuable report is the long, detailed account of the Prophet's Farewell Hajj — the fullest description we have of how the Prophet ﷺ performed the pilgrimage.

Abu Saʿid al-Khudri

أبو سعيد الخدري

He was turned away from the battle of Uhud for being too young to fight, then grew into one of the leading jurists among the Companions and a careful, much-consulted narrator.

Umar ibn al-Khattab

عمر بن الخطاب

The second caliph, and a deliberate exception to this list. Umar narrated relatively few hadith on purpose: he was strict about transmission, wary of people reporting loosely, and would ask for corroboration before accepting a report. Yet the hadith he did carry sits at the very front of Sahih al-Bukhari — the words that open the whole collection.

Hadith · narrated by Umar ibn al-Khattab

إِنَّمَا الأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ، وَإِنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مَا نَوَى

"The reward of deeds depends upon the intentions and every person will get the reward according to what he has intended."

Sahih al-Bukhari 1 · Sahih Muslim 1907

How to read a chain

Open a hadith printed in full and you do not meet the Prophet's words first. You meet a queue of names: "Qutaybah told us, from Malik, from Nafi', from Ibn Umar, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said…" The same handful of names comes round again and again, and a reader meeting them for the first time reasonably assumes they were all men who sat with the Prophet ﷺ.

Almost none of them were. In a chain of four or five names, normally one man heard the Prophet ﷺ with his own ears. Everyone else in the line was born after he died. They are not witnesses; they are the road the witness's report travelled to reach the man who wrote it down.

This is a real hadith from this site's own library — you can open it and see the chain for yourself: Sunan Abī Dāwūd 414, graded ṣaḥīḥ. Scholars call this particular line of men silsilat adh-dhahab, "the golden chain," because of how strong each link in it was held to be.

The chain, as printed

حَدَّثَنَا عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ مَسْلَمَةَ، عَنْ مَالِكٍ، عَنْ نَافِعٍ، عَنِ ابْنِ عُمَرَ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللَّهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ

"Abdullah ibn Maslamah told us, from Malik, from Nafi', from Ibn Umar, that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said: 'Anyone who loses his ʿAsr prayer is like a person whose family has perished and whose property has been plundered.'"

Sunan Abī Dāwūd 414 · ṣaḥīḥ

The chain is written from the collector backwards, so the last name before the Prophet ﷺ is the one man who actually stood in front of him. Read in the order the report was lived, it runs like this:

In the order it happened	Who he was	Standing to the Prophet ﷺ
Ibn Umar ابن عمر	Abdullah, son of Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph. Died around 73 AH.	Heard him directly. A Companion who grew up in Madinah under his eye — and his own sister Hafsah was one of the Prophet's wives, so this is a household this man could walk into.
Nafiʿ نافع	Ibn Umar's freed slave, who lived in his service for around thirty years. Died around 117 AH.	Never met him. Everything he carries about the Prophet ﷺ he has from Ibn Umar — but from a vantage point no visiting student could buy: he was in the house, every day, for decades.
Malik مالك	Malik ibn Anas, the imam of Madinah and author of the Muwattaʾ. Died 179 AH.	Never met him — born roughly a century after the Prophet ﷺ died. He is a scholar receiving the report, not a witness to it.
Abdullah ibn Maslamah عبد الله بن مسلمة	Al-Qaʿnabī, one of Malik's foremost students — and Abu Dawud's own teacher.	Never met him. He is simply the man who handed the report to the collector who wrote this book.

Four names; one Companion. That shape is not unusual — it is the ordinary shape of nearly every hadith you will read.

The three kinds of name you are looking at

Once you can see the shape, the recurring names sort themselves into three groups, and each group stands in a completely different relation to the Prophet ﷺ.

Where it sits	Who they are	Relation to the Prophet ﷺ
Last, nearest the Prophet	The Companions — aṣ-ṣaḥābah. Abu Hurayrah, Aisha, Ibn Abbas, Ibn Umar, Anas, Jabir, Abu Saʿid.	Direct. They saw and heard him. This is the only link in the chain where the relationship is personal.
The middle, and most of the length	The Successors — at-tābiʿūn — and their students. Nafiʿ, az-Zuhri, ʿUrwah, Qatadah, al-Aʿmash, Hisham ibn ʿUrwah, and the imams after them: Malik, Shuʿbah, Sufyan.	None. They never met him. Their relationship is to a Companion, or to a student of one — which is exactly the thing the chain exists to record.
First, nearest the collector	The collector's own teachers. Qutaybah ibn Saʿid, Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybah, Muhammad ibn Bashshar, Musaddad.	None, and two centuries removed. These are the men Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud and the rest sat with in person.

The Companions — the only names with a relationship to him

These are the men and women at the top of the chain: the ones the report is credited to. What follows is the thing a chain never states and a reader most wants to know — who they actually were to him.

Name	What he was to the Prophet ﷺ	How he came to hear so much
Abu Hurayrah أبو هريرة	No kinship at all. A poor man of the tribe of Daws in Yemen who arrived in Madinah around the year of Khaybar, roughly three or four years before the Prophet died.	He attached himself to the mosque as one of the Ahl aṣ-Ṣuffah — no trade, no family, no land to pull him away. Others were richer and had known the Prophet far longer; he was simply there more.
Aisha bint Abi Bakr عائشة	His wife, and daughter of Abu Bakr, his closest friend and first successor. Titled Umm al-Muʾminīn, Mother of the Believers.	She witnessed what no one outside the house could: his night prayer, his fasting, his conduct at home, and the whole fiqh of purity and marriage. She outlived him by some fifty years and taught throughout them.
Abdullah ibn Umar ابن عمر	Son of the second caliph, and brother of Hafsah, one of the Prophet's wives — so a young man with standing access to the household.	He was a boy in Madinah for the whole Madinan period and lived some sixty years after, copying what he had seen with famous exactness — stopping where the Prophet stopped, sitting where he sat.
Abdullah ibn Abbas ابن عباس	His first cousin — son of al-ʿAbbas ibn ʿAbd al-Muttalib, the Prophet's paternal uncle.	Only around thirteen when the Prophet died, so most of what he carries he gathered afterwards, spending decades questioning older Companions. He became the Qur'an interpreter of the ummah, turjumān al-Qurʾān.
Anas ibn Malik أنس بن مالك	His household servant, given into his service by his mother as a boy of about ten, from the Ansar of Madinah.	Ten unbroken years at close quarters, through ordinary days rather than public occasions — which is why so much of the everyday Sunnah comes through him. He lived to around 93 AH, among the last Companions in Basra.
Jabir ibn Abdullah جابر بن عبد الله	A young Ansari of Madinah, of Banu Salamah. His father was killed at Uhud, leaving him to raise his sisters.	He lived long and taught a circle in the Prophet's own mosque that students travelled to reach. His account of the Farewell Hajj is the fullest description we have of how the Prophet performed the pilgrimage.
Abu Saʿid al-Khudri أبو سعيد الخدري	An Ansari of Madinah, turned back from fighting at Uhud for being too young.	He grew into one of the leading jurists among the Companions and was consulted for decades, which is how a man who was a boy at Uhud ends up carrying so much.

The middle names — the men who never met him

These are the names that puzzle a new reader most, because they appear more often than the Companions do and yet no biography of the Prophet ﷺ mentions them. They are the generation after, and the generation after that. Several of them reached the Companions through their own families.

Name	Who he was	How he reaches the Prophet ﷺ
Nafiʿ نافع	Freed slave of Ibn Umar; died around 117 AH. The chains themselves say so — one calls him plainly نَافِعًا مَوْلَى عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عُمَرَ — that is, Nafiʿ, the freed slave of Abdullah ibn Umar, in the Arabic chain (Sunan Abī Dāwūd 1827).	Through Ibn Umar, and essentially only through him — thirty years inside one Companion's household.
Ibn Shihab az-Zuhri ابن شهاب الزهري	Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab, of Quraysh in Madinah; died 124 AH. The single most frequent middle name in the chains.	He caught the tail of the first generation — junior Companions such as Anas ibn Malik — and took the rest from the great Successors. He is the man most associated with gathering hadith into an organised body of knowledge.
ʿUrwah ibn az-Zubayr عروة بن الزبير	Son of az-Zubayr ibn al-ʿAwwam and of Asmaʾ bint Abi Bakr; died around 94 AH.	Aisha's nephew. Asmaʾ was her sister — so the enormous body of household reports from Aisha largely reaches us through a boy of her own family who could ask her anything.
Hisham ibn ʿUrwah هشام بن عروة	ʿUrwah's son; died around 146 AH.	Through his father, to his great-aunt Aisha. Chains reading Hisham → his father ʿUrwah → Aisha are common — three generations of one family carrying one woman's testimony.
Salim ibn Abdullah سالم بن عبد الله	Ibn Umar's own son; died around 106 AH.	Through his father. Beside Nafiʿ the servant, this is the household's other route out — the son and the freed slave, carrying the same man's memory.
Qatadah قتادة	Qatadah ibn Diʿamah of Basra, blind from birth and famous for the strength of his memory; died around 117 AH.	Through Anas ibn Malik and other Companions who had settled in Basra in old age.
Al-Aʿmash الأعمش	Sulayman ibn Mihran of Kufa; died around 148 AH.	Through the Kufan Successors, back to Companions such as Ibn Masʿud who had taught in that city.
ʿIkrimah عكرمة	Freed slave of Ibn Abbas; died around 105 AH.	Through Ibn Abbas — the same servant-of-the-household pattern as Nafiʿ, on the other great scholar of the family.
Malik, Shuʿbah, Sufyan مالك · شعبة · سفيان	The imams of the generation after: Malik ibn Anas of Madinah (d. 179 AH), Shuʿbah ibn al-Hajjaj of Basra (d. 160 AH), and Sufyan — of whom there are two.	None directly. By their time the Prophet ﷺ had been gone a century and a half; they are receiving, sifting and teaching what the Successors carried.

One man can wear several names. Ibn Shihab and az-Zuhri are not two narrators — they are the same man, Muhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab az-Zuhri, and chains in this site's library spell him out in full as مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ مُسْلِمِ بْنِ شِهَابٍ (Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2272). The same goes for Anas and Anas ibn Malik, or Jabir and Jabir ibn Abdullah. That is exactly what the fold described below repairs.

And one name can hide several men. A chain that says only Sufyan has not told you whether it means Sufyan ath-Thawri of Kufa (d. 161 AH) or Sufyan ibn ʿUyaynah of Makkah (d. 198 AH). A bare Abdullah, Yahya, Hammad or Ibrahim is worse. This is a recognised problem with its own name, al-muhmal — "the unspecified" — and it is why several names below are left standing apart instead of being tidied together. Resolving it is part of why the science of narrator-criticism, ʿilm ar-rijāl, had to be built at all.

The names — a directory

The narrators named often enough in the Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim text hosted here to be worth looking up, in alphabetical order. It is a directory, not a league table: no narrator is ranked above another, and the number of reports behind a name is not the point of this page. Where a name is spelled several ways across the translation, the spellings have been folded together and the commonest one is shown.

The label column is deliberately sparse. A narrator is marked Companion or Successor only where this site already documents that — in the hadith section or on the Companions page — and the badge links to where. Everywhere else it reads "—". That is not an oversight: filling the gap from memory would be exactly the kind of guessing this site does not do.

149 narrators

#	Narrator	Label
1	'Alqama	—
2	'Ubada bin As-Samit	—
3	'Ubaidullah bin ʿAbdullah	—
4	Abd ar-Rahman ibn Awfwritten in the translation as “ʿAbdur-Rahman bin ʿAuf”Early convert via Abu Bakr; among the ten given glad tidings of Paradise.	Companion
5	Abdullah ibn Abbaswritten in the translation as “Ibn ʿAbbas”His first cousin; around thirteen when the Prophet ﷺ died. Turjumān al-Qurʾān.	Companion
6	Abdullah ibn Amrwritten in the translation as “ʿAbdullah bin ʿAmr”	—
7	Abdullah ibn Masʿudwritten in the translation as “ʿAbdullah bin Masʿud”Shepherd turned early convert and close attendant; founding authority of Kufan fiqh and qirāʾah.	Companion
8	Abdullah ibn Umarwritten in the translation as “Ibn ʿUmar”Son of the second caliph, and brother of Hafsah, one of the Prophet’s wives.	Companion
9	Abu 'Is-haq	—
10	Abu Aiyub Al-Ansari	—
11	Abu Al-Minhal	—
12	Abu Bakr as-Siddiqwritten in the translation as “Abu Bakr”The bare name as written. Abu Bakr as-Siddiq, the first caliph, is profiled on this site.	Companion
13	Abu Bakra	—
14	Abu Burda	—
15	Abu Dharr al-Ghifariwritten in the translation as “Abu Dhar”Of the tribe of Ghifar; among the very earliest converts and a famed ascetic voice.	Companion
16	Abu Hazim	—
17	Abu Humaid As-Saʿidi	—
18	Abu Hurayrahwritten in the translation as “Abu Huraira”Of the Ahl aṣ-Ṣuffah; no kinship to the Prophet ﷺ. Arrived in Madinah around the year of Khaybar.	Companion
19	Abu Jamra	—
20	Abu Juhaifa	—
21	Abu Masʿud	—
22	Abu Musa al-Ashʿariwritten in the translation as “Abu Musa”	—
23	Abu Qatada	—
24	Abu Qilaba	—
25	Abu Rafiʿ	—
26	Abu Salama	—
27	Abu Saʿid al-Khudriwritten in the translation as “Abu Saʿid Al-Khudri”An Ansari of Madinah, turned back from Uhud for being too young.	Companion
28	Abu Talha	—
29	Abu Thaʿlaba Al-Khushani	—
30	Abu Usaid	—
31	Abu Wail	—
32	Abu ʿUthman	—
33	Aisha bint Abi Bakrwritten in the translation as “ʿAisha”His wife, and daughter of Abu Bakr. Titled Umm al-Muʾminīn.	Companion
34	Aiyub	—
35	Al-Aswad	—
36	Al-AʿmashSulayman ibn Mihran of Kufa, d. around 148 AH.	Successor
37	Al-Bara ibn Azibwritten in the translation as “Al-Bara”	—
38	Al-Hasan	—
39	Al-Miswar bin Makhrama	—
40	Al-Mughira	—
41	Al-Mughira bin Shuʿba	—
42	Al-Musaiyab	—
43	Al-Qasim	—
44	Al-Qasim bin Muhammad	—
45	Aliwritten in the translation as “ʿAli”The bare name as written. Ali ibn Abi Talib — cousin, son-in-law and fourth caliph — is profiled on this site.	Companion
46	An-Nuʿman bin Bashir	—
47	Anas ibn Malikwritten in the translation as “Anas”His household servant for ten years, from the Ansar of Madinah.	Companion
48	As-Sa'ib bin Yazid	—
49	Ash-Shaibani	—
50	Ash-Shuʿbi	—
51	Aslam	—
52	Asma	—
53	Asma bint Abi Bakrwritten in the translation as “Asma' bint Abu Bakr”	—
54	Ata	—
55	Az-ZuhriMuhammad ibn Muslim ibn Shihab az-Zuhri of Madinah, d. 124 AH. Never met the Prophet ﷺ.	Successor
56	Hafsa	—
57	Hakim bin Hizam	—
58	Hisham	—
59	Hudhaifa	—
60	Humaid	—
61	Humaid bin ʿAbdur-Rahman	—
62	Ibn Abi Mulaika	—
63	Ibn Abi ʿAufa	—
64	Ibn Juraij	—
65	Ibn ShihabThe same man as az-Zuhri, written under his other name — the classic case of one man wearing two names.	Successor
66	Ibrahim	—
67	Ismaʿil	—
68	Jabir bin Samura	—
69	Jabir ibn Abdullahwritten in the translation as “Jabir bin ʿAbdullah”A young Ansari of Banu Salamah; taught a circle in the Prophet’s own mosque.	Companion
70	Jarir	—
71	Jarir bin ʿAbdullah	—
72	Jubair bin Mutʿim	—
73	Jundub	—
74	Kaʿb bin Malik	—
75	Kaʿb bin Ujra	—
76	Khabbab	—
77	Khalid ibn al-Walidwritten in the translation as “Khalid bin Al-Walid”Sayf Allah, the Sword of Allah; converted in 8 AH.	Companion
78	Maimuna	—
79	Masruq	—
80	Muawiya	—
81	Muhammad	—
82	Muhammad bin Seereen	—
83	Mujahid	—
84	NafiʿFreed slave of Ibn Umar, in his service around thirty years. Never met the Prophet ﷺ.	Successor
85	Qais	—
86	Qatadahwritten in the translation as “Qatada”Qatadah ibn Diʿamah of Basra, blind from birth. Reached the Companions who settled in Basra.	Successor
87	Rafiʿ bin Khadij	—
88	Sahl ibn Saʿdwritten in the translation as “Sahl bin Saʿd”	—
89	Salama	—
90	Salama bin Al-Akwaʿ	—
91	Salim	—
92	Salim Abu An-Nadr	—
93	Salim ibn Abdullahwritten in the translation as “Salim bin ʿAbdullah”Ibn Umar’s own son — the household’s other route out, beside Nafiʿ the freed slave.	Successor
94	Samura bin Jundab	—
95	Saʿd	—
96	Saʿd ibn Abi Waqqaswritten in the translation as “Saʿd bin Abi Waqqas”Maternal kinsman of the Prophet ﷺ; among the ten given glad tidings of Paradise.	Companion
97	Saʿid	—
98	Saʿid bin Al-Musaiyab	—
99	Saʿid bin Jubair	—
100	Shaqiq	—
101	Shaqiq bin Salama	—
102	Suwaid bin An-Nuʿman	—
103	Tawus	—
104	Thabit	—
105	Thabit bin Ad-Dahhak	—
106	Ubai bin Kaʿb	—
107	Ubaidullah bin ʿAbdullah bin ʿUtba	—
108	Um 'Atiyya	—
109	Um Habiba	—
110	Umarwritten in the translation as “ʿUmar”The translation leaves the name bare here; the second caliph is the man usually meant, but the key is left unmerged.	Companion
111	Umar ibn al-Khattabwritten in the translation as “ʿUmar bin Al-Khattab”The second caliph — strict about transmission, and a deliberate under-narrator.	Companion
112	Umm Salamahwritten in the translation as “Um Salama”Mother of the Believers; her counsel at Hudaybiyyah resolved the community’s hardest moment.	Companion
113	Usama	—
114	Usama bin Zaid	—
115	Warrad	—
116	Zahdam	—
117	Zaid bin Arqam	—
118	Zaid bin Khalid Al-Juhani	—
119	Zainab bint Abi Salama	—
120	Zayd ibn Thabitwritten in the translation as “Zaid bin Thabit”The Ansari boy-scribe of Madinah; led both Quran-compilation projects.	Companion
121	ʿAbbad bin Tamim	—
122	ʿAbdul ʿAziz	—
123	ʿAbdullah bin Abi Qatada	—
124	ʿAbdullah bin Abi ʿAufa	—
125	ʿAbdullah bin Az-Zubair	—
126	ʿAbdullah bin Buhaina	—
127	ʿAbdullah bin Dinar	—
128	ʿAbdullah bin Hisham	—
129	ʿAbdullah bin Kaʿb	—
130	ʿAbdullah bin Mughaffal	—
131	ʿAbdullah bin Zaid	—
132	ʿAbdur Rahman bin Abi Laila	—
133	ʿAbdur-Rahman bin Abu Bakr	—
134	ʿAbdur-Rahman bin Yazid	—
135	ʿAdi bin Hatim	—
136	ʿAli bin Abi Talib	—
137	ʿAmr	—
138	ʿAmr bin Al-Harith	—
139	ʿAmr bin Dinar	—
140	ʿAmr bin Maimun	—
141	ʿAmra bint ʿAbdur-Rahman	—
142	ʿAsim	—
143	ʿIkrimahwritten in the translation as “ʿIkrima”Freed slave of Ibn Abbas. Never met the Prophet ﷺ.	Successor
144	ʿImran	—
145	ʿImran bin Husain	—
146	ʿUqba bin 'Amir	—
147	ʿUqba bin Al-Harith	—
148	ʿUrwa	—
149	ʿUrwah ibn az-Zubayrwritten in the translation as “ʿUrwa bin Az-Zubair”Aisha’s nephew — son of her sister Asmaʾ. Never met the Prophet ﷺ.	Successor

How these names were gathered — and what this page does not claim

Each hadith this site hosts from Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim was checked for the translator's Narrated X: prefix. That prefix gives the Companion the report is credited to, and nothing else. It is not the chain of transmission, and no claim about a chain is made from it anywhere on this page — the site does hold full Arabic isnads, but only in the four Sunan and only in Arabic, so the Successors and the collectors' teachers cannot be read out of the two Sahihs at all.

One man's name is spelled a dozen ways in a single translation — Abu Sa'id Al-Khudri, Abu Sa`id al-Khudri, Abu Said Al Khudri — so the spellings are folded together before anyone is listed. That happens in two passes, and only two:

By rule. Case, the ʿayn and hamza marks, hyphens, the article al-, and bin / ibn / b. are normalised, and the translators' parenthetical glosses dropped.
By an explicit list of 21 equivalences. Each one is either a bare name the same translation writes out in full elsewhere (Anas → Anas ibn Malik, Ibn ʿUmar → Abdullah ibn Umar) or the same name with a nisba attached (Sahl ibn Saʿd as-Saʿidi → Sahl ibn Saʿd). Nothing was merged on a hunch; the list lives in lib/narrators-data.js where it can be read and argued with.

Names that appear only once or twice are left out of the directory above — not because they are less real, but because a single appearance gives a reader nothing to look up.

Four names left standing apart, on purpose

A fold that merges too eagerly manufactures a person who never existed. These were left alone:

An unresolved “ʿAbdullah”, 207 reports. The commonest name in Arabia, left bare by the translation. Where the translators do gloss it, it resolves variously to Ibn Masʿūd, Ibn ʿUmar, Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn ʿAmr — four different Companions. Folding it into any one of them would invent a fact, so it sits outside the ranking as its own bucket.
Joint attributions, 112 reports across 34 pairings. Reports the translation credits to two people at once — “Abu Huraira and Zaid bin Khalid”, “Aisha and Ibn ʿAbbas”. Splitting one report between two narrators would double-count it; assigning it to the first name would be arbitrary. They are counted as themselves.
Referential attributions, 68 reports. “Hisham’s father”, “Salim’s father” — the tradition knows who is meant, but resolving a relative reference into a name is an editorial act on top of the data, so it is not performed here.
A bare ʿUrwa, and a check that failed. ʿUrwa and ʿUrwa ibn az-Zubayr look like the obvious next merge. The occurrences were examined before merging, and they include ʿUrwa al-Bāriqī, ʿUrwa ibn al-Mughīra and ʿUrwa ibn Jaʿd — different men. The two keys stay split. The same reasoning leaves a bare ʿAlī, Saʿd and Sālim where they were written — the classical problem of al-muhmal, “the unspecified”.

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